WHY do u stay in West Va. (Charleston, Huntington: home, rent)

[David Kennedy]

I'm laughing...the route you will travel is not exactly one of the old buffalo trails.
We have widened some of the roads and covered them with asphalt. The route up to Beckley is one of them. Done at a horrendous cost, as cuts were made through mountains of solid rock to make them level and comfortable to drive.

The route from Beckley on North to I-79 is breathtaking and a tribute to good engineering and design....and a dollar from our 'Big Daddy' Sen. Robert Byrd.
You will have some rural driving on to Glade Springs...that should not be a problem.
New Year's eve can pose a problem with weather in the N.C., VA. and lower WV mountains.
Witheville, Bluefield and Beckley can always have snow at that time because of the high elevation.
The speed limit through these areas are 65 mph. The roads should be clear, if snowy, cindered and salted.
Have a wonderful and restful trip.

[g_massie]

Fancy Gap,VA is what you need to avoid not whats in the west virginia part...

[snorpus]

Depending on what part of NC you're coming from, you'll follow one of three possible routes:

1. From eastern NC, north on I-95, then west on I-64 to Charlottesville and Staunton, south on I-81 (which is also still I-64 West), then at Lexington follow I-64 West to Clifton Forge, Lewisburg, and then Beckley.

2. From the Charlotte area, north on I-77 till you hit I-81, then I-81 South (still I-77 North) about 10 miles to Wytheville VA, then I-77 North to Princeton and Beckley, WV.

3. From the Smoky Mountains, take I-81 North to Wytheville, then I-77 North as in route #2.

These are all modern interstates... with medians, guardrails, trucks to plow snow and put down anti-skid material, etc. But snow is quite possible, so check the weather forecasts, be sure your vehicle is prepared (good tires, plenty of washer fluid, a scraper or two). If possible, drive in daylight and allow plenty of time to reach your destination.

Snorpus

[Ohio is Utopia]

Originally Posted by tbailey1138

If the job situation were as bleak as the picture you paint though, the unemployment rate would be a lot higher here.

Sure, people are employed............by McDonald's or hospitals. I'm far from the only one that graduated and had to move away to find work. All the engineering in that area is up around Charleston, and I'd rather live in hell than there. Talk about horrible air, Charleston has a continual stench in the air from chemical plants.

I could have stayed in Huntington, but for much less and would have still been around all my bum relatives in a town that has nothing. Honestly, what can you do in Huntington? It's 3 hours away from anything worth a damn. At least now I'm only about an hour away.

[corgis]

Originally Posted by Ohio is Utopia

Sure, people are employed............by McDonald's or hospitals. I'm far from the only one that graduated and had to move away to find work. All the engineering in that area is up around Charleston, and I'd rather live in hell than there. Talk about horrible air, Charleston has a continual stench in the air from chemical plants.

I could have stayed in Huntington, but for much less and would have still been around all my bum relatives in a town that has nothing. Honestly, what can you do in Huntington? It's 3 hours away from anything worth a damn. At least now I'm only about an hour away.

Ohio - I'm sorry but I have to take exception to your remarks about Huntington. I was born and raised in Ohio so I know the state well. That being said, my son went to MU, graduated and is the assistant band director at Cabell Midland High School. He lives in West Huntington and loves it. All through college he was able to find jobs to support himself and pay his college expenses. Being a music major is always a bit more expensive because you have to have your own instrument, music, etc. He is also the Huntington feeder elementary schools music teacher, meaning he travels from elementary school to elementary school. Cabell County pays its teachers a higher rate than Kanawha County does, he gets state benefits and has a really good life in Huntington.

I just don't see how you can think that the only jobs are fast food or other minimum wage jobs. It's simply not true.

We live in Charleston during the winter and in the summer we live in Maine and will be retiring to Maine within the next 2 years. It's just a personal choice for us not economic as we like the Maine way of life much better than the WV way of life.

I'll shut up now and get off my soap box.

[snorpus]

50th?

By what statistic?

And I'd like a source, please.

[Ohio is Utopia]

The State Journal - News for West Virginia's Leaders

You don't have to read very far down to see where Forbes ranked WV.

[snorpus]

Ah, I see, one of those magazine manufactured rankings that measures a nebulous concept, "economic vitality". Kind of like those "Best Cities in America" or "Best Counties to Retire In"... it all depends on what the authors decide is important, how those concepts are measured, and how they are weighted when they're combined to come up with a final "ranking".

If we look at Real Per-Capita Income Growth Rate, for example. from 1969 to 1999, West Virginia ranks 35th. (Interestingly, Ohio is just one place behind, in 36th place.)

In the 2nd quarter of 2006, West Virginia ranked 23rd in the rate of growth of Personal Income Per Capita.

In Violent Crime per 100,000 population, West Virginia ranked 38th in 2005, while Ohio ranked 27th. A higher number is better; it means fewer crimes per 100K population. South Carolina and Tennessee were #1 and #2, while Maine was #49 and North Dakota #50.

I don't think anyone here is saying that WV's economy can't be improved, but I do think that many of us feel that it's much more than state parks and retirement farms, that there are opportunities for talented, industrious individuals who value what West Virginia has to offer, who don't want to see WV turned into another Florida or DC suburb, and are willing to work hard to make it happen.

Snorpus

[tbailey1138]

Originally Posted by Ohio is Utopia

People are taking it too personally once again.

Maybe people are taking your comments personally because you are being personal with your attacks on them such as "Pretty funny. "How dare you badmouth WV? Well, come to find out I like Maine better than WV, but errr oeuvweaovweljvwe......WV RULZ!!!!!!!!!" " It sounds pretty personal when you take something that someone said and do what you did above. Or like when you accused GHO for being unoriginal in another post (even though you admitted that you stole the welcome motto you had posted from someone else) or when you made fun of him for a simple slip on the keyboard (which I'm sure you've never done in a post before). If you don't want people to take your comments personally, then don't make them personal.

To back up what myself and others on here are saying about Huntington, check out it's individual ranking on Forbes.

Cost of Living #1, best in the ENTIRE US (including places in Ohio). If you live in Columbus, it ranks #55 on the list and Cincinnati is #47. So to claim that the cost of living is the same as it is in Huntington, not quite right.

Income Growth #55, pretty high ranking for income growth for those working at McDonald's like you say huh?

Job Growth #45, which seems like a pretty high ranking if it's only medically related or McDonald's jobs.

Huntington was ranked low in culture and leisure but look at the other places it was compared to. These are the 200 largest metro areas in the entire US, which makes the above rankings sound even better. And only Columbus (#88), Cincinnati (#101) and Akron (#129) ranked higher than Huntington in the overall category with the 5 other Ohio large metros being ranked below it. Sounds like your issues are more with your family than they are the city of Huntington or the state of West Virginia. Here's the Forbes link #130 Huntington WV - Forbes.com

[Ohio is Utopia]

Originally Posted by snorpus

I do think that many of us feel that it's much more than state parks and retirement farms, that there are opportunities for talented, industrious individuals who value what West Virginia has to offer.

Snorpus

Where are these opportunities? What does WV have to offer?

I lived there almost my whole life and the answers that came to me were: The few opportunities there were are in Charleston, home of the stink and worse traffic than a lot of big cities; and WV has beautiful state parks to offer and not much else.

What am I missing? Where are all these opportunities and things that WV has to offer? Charleston? Are they all in Charleston or Morgantown? They sure as hell aren't in Huntington.

Charleston is a toilet. It smells like one. I-64 at 5:00 is a parking lot. I would expect this in a bigger city, but come on, this is dinky little ole Charleston, WV we're talking here.