New York to WY - question re: Laramie (Cheyenne, Warren AFB: apartment, for rent)

[galiana]

Hi y'all. I'm currently living in New York (finishing up the grad degree) and strongly considering a move to WY. I mostly grew up in TX and have always wanted a small hobby farm - chickens, horses, a couple of sheep, a large garden... you know what I mean.

Anyhow, I have a question about Laramie. Like I said I'll have a grad degree and would like to get a position as a professor (even just an adjunct or visiting scholar) at the university there. That's the plan, anyway. If not I do have a computer consultancy business that I run out of my apartment currently. Anyone need a good IT consultant?

So, can those who have experience with Laramie tell me what it's like? I'm used to the socialist bull**** you get on the east coast, so living among normal people again will be refreshing.

I'm also looking for suggestions on where to live. Would like to buy a 30 acre parcel or so a commutable (within an hour's drive, give or take) distance from town. Anyone have any suggestions where to look?

Thanks in advance!

[ElkHunter]

Just a word of advice. Go for 40 acres. The reason I say that is it seems that anything under 40 can be subject to convinences and subdivisions. Where as anything 40 and above is it's own entity.

[sunsprit]

40 is also the minimum parcel size for which the State Engineer will approve a domestic use well permit, unless you're in a platted subdivision or an older parcel. Anyway, 40's are not "big" places out here in Wyoming. If you can afford it, buy more acreage than that. Most of the places you'd be looking at will be established and have these issues worked out already, but there are opportunities to buy raw land and develop it yourself.

Keep in mind that this is a "dry" climate, and ... unless you have live water and sub-irrigated meadows, you'll not have enough productive land to keep grazing livestock on without buying hay to feed them. Fortunately, Laramie area produces a lot of hay, so there's generally plenty to buy for your horses and sheep at reasonable prices. Also, unless your parcel comes with irrigation water (rights and functional availability), you'll not likely be able to obtain any ... so don't plan on having/using any water for such purposes. The land condition you see on your parcel will most likely be strictly natural rainfall/snowfall. A horse can eat down a bunch of acres in no time at all (the rule of thumb in the area is 100 acres per cow/calf unit for sustainability); it's pretty sparse country.

With the likelihood of road closures and major storms in the area each winter, I wouldn't buy property as a primary residence more than 15-20 minutes out of town if you seek employment there. I'd probably look in the SW corridor or West of Laramie.

Garden .... the growing season here is very short, but it can be very productive. Best to set up a "tunnel greenhouse" such as you can get from FarmTek. A couple thousand dollar effort will reward you with a more controlled environment and a much longer growing season for your garden; you can get warmer temps (esp overnight) and control how windy it gets in the garden.

IMO, if you're looking for a reasonably independent and self-reliant place ... the outbuildings and infrastructure will be more important than the house itself. You may find properties otherwise to your liking where the house is a little marginal (I'm trying to be kind about this) ... we've seen several where the overall condition warranted buying the property and planning on having a bulldozer immediately clear the land so we could put up a new house.

Laramie has super access to all kinds of outdoor recreation right off your doorstep. Wonderful mountains nearby, good access to shopping (locally or down the canyon to Fort Collins). One of my favorite places in Wyoming ....

[sixofone]

You don't mention whether your "grad degree" is a Masters or a PhD. This is only speculation on my part, but I'd suspect that a masters would at, at best, qualify you for an adjunct professorship in a UW extension program. If you're counting on a UW teaching gig, I'd strongly advise you to check out employment in advance. Don't forget to look into the Wyoming Juco system and the base education office at FE Warren AFB in Cheyenne, which is only about an hour from Laramie.

On the other hand, if your main desire is to settle in Laramie (which is a great place) and run your consulting business, you'll need to make sure that your 40 acre ranchette has hi-speed internet access. You folks back East tend to think that cell phones and broadband internet are everywhere, but in sparsely populated Wyoming there are many areas without service. Trying to run a consulting business or teach an on-line extension course using dial-up won't be easy.

Finally, listen to the other folks on this board when they talk about water rights, Wyoming winters and living in remote areas. Too many people move here without doing their homework and they are usually unhappy.

[galiana]

Thanks for your input, everyone. The parcel I'm looking at is about 40 miles outside of Laramie. It does have some sub-irrigated pasture (so I'm told) but I can't find anything out yet about the water/well rights. It's only about 40 acres - it's good to know that I'm looking for more land than that. You're right... having 2 horses, a couple of goats or sheep, and fowl on 40 acres would be a little cozy - certainly there wouldn't be any room to expand the brood.

My degree will indeed be a PhD and UW is looking for an adjunct in my field, so we'll see what they say. If not, there's always the consultancy, and I see the state is looking for a couple of IT professionals as well. Thanks SO much for the tip on high-speed internet. I have thought about power and phone, but being the idiot that I am I didn't think about net access.

If anyone else has any tips for the n00b, please feel free to share. Can you tell me how the weather in Laramie differs from the weather in Cheyenne? I don't mind the cold weather at all (and I was fine in windy Chicago in January - even wore sandals) but it would be nice to have a heads up. Can anyone give me a rough estimate of how many times they close 287 down in the winter? How long (I assume the figure is a matter of days) does it take for it to re-open again?

I appreciate your expertise.

[sunsprit]

Laramie tends to be colder than Cheyenne, and the winds can be stronger on the Laramie side. Snowfall accumulation tends to be more on the Laramie side, too.

Road closures ... depend upon many factors, not just snowfall depth. Icy roads, low visibility, a number of accidents, and so forth are considerations for closing the highways. When I-80 shuts down, Laramie's limited truck stop capacity and motels will typically be max'ed out and over capacity. I've seen a number of times when Laramie roads were shut down for 24-48 hours during and following a fairly intense storm (and that has happened in late April, too). In an average year ... based on my travels, not weather data ... it's not unusual to have 10-12 days worth of interstate road closures. They may be a day or so in duration, sometimes only a day's worth, sometimes just an evening. There's probably more, but I haven't had to deal with them .... The local county surface roads may/may not close down at the same time, but local travel will typically be hazardous and local WYDOT warnings will advise to do no unecessary travel.

It's best to heed those warnings, and be prepared to enjoy the stay at home. Take care of one's livestock, throw another log or two on the fire, enjoy the snug homestead and slower pace for awhile. Catch up on some long delayed reading and crafts. Cook up some great comfort food. Maybe ... if they can make it over the roads close by ... have a neigbor over for supper and a visit.

Hope the power doesn't go out ... and be prepared for your needs if it does.
We use Aladdin lamps for light/heat during those times, a wood cookstove for cooking/heating, and the freezers in the outbuildings usually stay quite frozen. A modest aux generator can run our domestic well, heat our livestock waterers, help keep the livestock in the barns comfortable, and so forth ... although we keep it's use to a bare minimum. We enjoy the peace and solitude here, so the quiet times in the winter are especially valuable and enjoyable for us.

With the right attitude and preparation, the times of road closures in the area will be nothing more than a minor inconvenience and not a calamity of bibilical proportions.

40 miles North of Laramie is some pretty open country, and downwind of some of the weather patterns from Medicine Bow, which can be rather extreme. It depends somewhat on how close you are to the edge of the ridge foothills. You might want to visit with some of your potential new neighbors before making a purchase in the area to find out about roads, climate, water, soils, etc.

[Earniefan]

If you're 40 miles from Laramie on 287 then you have to be looking north of town, right?

[ElkHunter]

By chance, the "WyoTex" ranch?

[galiana]

Not the WyTex ranch - from all I've read it doesn't look like the kind of place you could live successfully year-round. Maybe I'm wrong?

So... where do people in Wyoming actually look when they want to buy land? So far I've been relying on the internet - various realtor sites, craigslist, etc. Are those the best places or am I missing something big? I've looked on the websites for the local papers but there doesn't seem to be much.

[ElkHunter]

I found out today that people are listing their homes up for rent, on Craig's list and not in the local paper or with the local realitors.

That's going to cause some problems I believe. As there are a lot of people here, living in motels trying to find housing.