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A couple years ago my wife and I moved from central NY to northwest TN. We're not happy here, I miss the clear water lakes I boated in, trees, hills, greenery, car cruises and drag race tracks. My wife misses the shopping, general "things to do" and she hates the constant rain storms threatening tornado's. We would love to hear about other areas that offer what we miss. If you know of an area in the US that isn't crazy expensive then please, I'd love to hear suggestions.
Thanks, Chris
A couple years ago my wife and I moved from central NY to northwest TN. We're not happy here, I miss the clear water lakes I boated in, trees, hills, greenery, car cruises and drag race tracks. My wife misses the shopping, general "things to do" and she hates the constant rain storms threatening tornado's. We would love to hear about other areas that offer what we miss. If you know of an area in the US that isn't crazy expensive then please, I'd love to hear suggestions.
Thanks, Chris
Without knowing the true definition of "crazy expensive" you might consider towns along the I-77 corridor just north of Charlotte or the Lake Murray area to the northwest of Columbia, SC.
Charlotte is obviously a larger city and towns like Huntersville and Mooresville have you close enough to Charlotte as well as beautiful Lake Norman. Visit Lake Norman's Homepage
Columbia is often overlooked in South Carolina, and the region, but offers a great quality of life at a lower price than other metros in the Carolinas. Besides being the state capitol it's home to the University of South Carolina which offers up plenty of "things to do" socially and culturally through sporting events and exhibits/concerts. Lake Murray is a huge recreational area. Lake Murray SC - Where the fun begins!
Neither area is affected much (if at all) by extreme weather. Even tropical weather systems such as Tropical Storms/Hurricanes fizzle to the pretty much nothing as they reach these cities which are quite a ways inland....
and tornadoes have not been a weather factor either.
A couple years ago my wife and I moved from central NY to northwest TN. We're not happy here, I miss the clear water lakes I boated in, trees, hills, greenery, car cruises and drag race tracks. My wife misses the shopping, general "things to do" and she hates the constant rain storms threatening tornado's. We would love to hear about other areas that offer what we miss. If you know of an area in the US that isn't crazy expensive then please, I'd love to hear suggestions.
Thanks, Chris
Egads, I would never live in NW TN, either. Why not come over to East Tennessee where we have mountains, clear water lakes, no tornadoes, and everything else you mentioned? Plus you'd still be in TN with its very favorable tax rates.
Having grown up in CNY and left for economic reasons, I've seen many worse places and not so many better.
North-middle lower Michigan might be a good area to check out. Traverse City looks kind of pricey but the area kinda between there and Grand Rapids looks much more doable if you can find something with a modest income. Plenty of trees, lower hills than CNY but still some roll to the landscape. "Da U.P." and even the "tip of the mitt" in the lower peninsula might be a little too remote for your wife.
I was also impressed with the area around Bemidji, MN. Bet you'd have to prepare for a lot more winter cold wind than in CNY, even in Iowa where I lived for a couple of years the cold wind (although not so much the precipitation) is more so of both than around Syracuse.
West Milford and Highland Lakes, NJ are what i'm familiar with that seems to fit your description for a place you'd want to be.
It's in North West NJ, so it's not the typical urban dense NJ city. It's more rural, clean, cheaper and naturally prettier... your about an hour from NYC and literally single digit miles from NY state.
you'd be surrounded by state parks and lakes.
West Milford is the bigger city compared to Highland Lakes, but both have the similar feel, and both feel as if they'd be the same size.
I think harsh winters and clear lakes tend to go together, most natural lakes were formed by glacial action.
If the Tennessee River reservoirs are clear enough for you then east TN is well worth a look. Both my wife and I have traveled to Chattanooga on business and think that area seems pretty nice to live - a friend there advises finding a job before you come though.
Maybe the Shenandoah Valley of VA would be a good area to look if moderate climate and not quite so remote are more important than the immediate proximity of lakes. Plenty of food industry, including one branch plant of my wife's company - they seem always to be looking for 2nd/3rd shift maintenance managers at one facility or another.
Possibly your experience could be of value to equipment vendors as well. Maybe better hours some of the time, but mixed with travel. That will open up more locations too, seems most food companies are located in historically agricultural regions even if they haven't for years (or ever) used local produce.
You could look into Springfield, Missouri area. There's drag racing at Springfield Raceway
www.SpringfieldRaceway.com (http://springfieldraceway.com/wp/ - broken link)
There's also a couple shopping malls (which your wife might like) as well as Minor League Baseball.
Tornadoes happen, but they're probably not as likely as other parts of the country. Here's a map: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...nado_Alley.gif
Springfield has 150,000 people. Average snowfall is 17 inches, which is enough, but not as much as you will find up north. Snowfall - Average Total In Inches
The city itself seems pretty flat, but the area all around is Ozarks, so hills are a-plenty. Branson is about an hour south. It has an amusement park (Silver Dollar City) and broadway-type shows and stuff. We don't usually go there for the shows, though. Around Branson is Table Rock Lake, Beaver lake, Norfork Lake. North of Springfield is Stockton Lake, Harry S. Truman Reservoir, and Lake of the Ozarks (about an hour-and-a-half north).
You'd have your lakes (within an hour to an hour-and-a-half to Springfield), greenery, Hills, from what I found online there's a dragrace track (though I don't know anything about it). You also have shopping, Branson not too far away, and some general city life. You will still have some oppressive heat, though this summer has been milder than last year. And your winters won't be as harsh as up north.
Of course, if you don't want to live in the city of Springfield, there are smaller towns around there that are fine as well. And there are plenty of great towns around Branson and Lake of the Ozarks.
Sorry about the cross posting. I changed a little info on each post and put them in the three states I was most interested in. For TN it was Nashville, Knoxville and Tri cities suburbs. In VA it was Roanoke, Richmond and Hampton Roads suburbs. In NC it was Charlotte, Greensboro and Raleigh suburbs.
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