Midwesterner's impressions of Raleigh (Charlotte, Boone: home, neighborhood, tornadoes)
Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, CaryThe Triangle Area
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I think indoor malls are still popular here because who wants to walk around shopping outside in 100 degree 90% humidity summers lol.
Not trying to pick on you, but the same could be said for the midwest, but in reverse. We had some outdoor malls outside of Chicago but we never went there in the winter time. Too cold!
I'm also from the midwest: I've lived in Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa and spent three summers in Michigan.
I love the rolling hills here--so much better than the flat flat flat cornfields of central IL. I also love all the trees, but I will say that sometimes I miss seeing a really good sunset. We don't have that horizon line here, so I really miss seeing the sun go all the way down until you can't see it anymore. But I don't miss it enough to move back! lol
I was a bit worried when we moved here that the fall wouldn't be as pretty with all of the evergreen Pine trees, but we still have plenty of deciduous trees that it's still beautiful in the fall. Actually, I think there's nothing like the bright leaves against that clear Carolina blue sky. Absolutely gorgeous!!
One thing that is very different to me are the storms. We don't get those funky storm clouds here like we did back in the midwest. I took a photog class here in Raleigh and the instructor had just gotten back from visiting the midwest and had taken tons and tons of photos of the storm clouds. He pulled over on the side of a country road to take pics because he had never seen anything like them.
Another difference in housing is that we don't have as many basements here. It is much more common to have a walk up attic/3rd floor than it is to have a basement. Were you finding basements in Youngsville? Just curious.
Being from Kansas City, you will probably really miss barbecue. NC has very different barbecue. I actually really love Eastern NC style (vinegar & hot pepper), but I miss a really good tomato based sauce sometimes.
So glad you liked what you saw here in NC. It's a wonderful place to live! Good luck with your move and welcome to the Triangle!
Yes, just yesterday we had some of that very weird midwestern weather. It was 74 and very muggy when I first got up to let the dogs out, but while I was getting ready for work, I heard the gust front come through. The clouds came boiling in like they do here and the temperature dropped drastically. By the time I left the house to go to work it was raining and I had to put on a heavy coat!
I have gotten some really beautiful sunset pictures here as well as well as ones of some really odd looking cloud formations.
My drive here north of KC is pretty hilly - it can be pretty tough in the snow and ice. I notice that while the Raleigh area has some nice rolling hills, nothing that I would worry about driving on in winter weather so that will be nice.
Of all the homes we looked at north of Raleigh there was only one that had a basement and the rest of the house didn't really grab us, so we had to pass on that. We will really miss having a basement. Although not having one might make us be less of pack-rats!!!
Ah, yes, the beloved Kansas City Barbeque!!! My neice and her husband took us to The Pit for BBQ while we were in town. I had the western Carolina style sauce which is the really sweet tomato based sauce and my husband had both kinds, the sweet and the more vinegar based. It was certainly different but good. We will be ordering a few cases of KC Masterpiece sauce before we head out there next month, just so we can have a taste of home while we are in our adjustment period!
No need to order KC Masterpiece. You can find that easily enough in the grocery stores.
And you definitely will need to worry about driving on Raleigh roads in snow. We don't have much snow removal equipment. The snow events are so rare that it doesn't make sense to invest in a bunch of equipment that won't even get used at all some years. So our main method is to salt and wait for it to melt. We get a lot of black ice when it refreezes, but again the freezing precip is not very common here — maybe once or twice a year in a big year, but when it does happen we just all stay home and have a holiday and shake our heads at the people who tried to drive and went sliding into a tree or a parked car.
I have to echo poppydog on driving in the snow. We don't get it often but the roads are terrible. Since there's not much snow removal equip, only the main roads get plowed or salted. Lots of slushy ruts that then get refrozen overnight. My husband grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere and he said the roads here were worse than back home. This was after a significant snow here, not just a dusting.
But as poppydog said, everybody stays home. School is cancelled with even the threat of snow and many major employers close as well. It is literally a big party on our street--most of parents are home along with the kids and we all hang out.
Back in Jan 2000 we had 22" of snow in 24 hours. Schools and many offices were closed for a WEEK! Also, we are a countywide school district so if one part of the county has snow or ice on the ground, everybody is closed. Newer subdivisions with few mature trees will have no snow on the roads but older parts of town with lots of large shade trees may have areas that don't melt. So even though it's 50 degrees, sunny and no ice on your streets, school will be closed. It's funny. I find the other drivers here more dangerous than the conditions a lot of the times, though. It can be 1/2" of snow on the ground and people will drive 10 mph.
One really nice side effect of no salt on the roads/sidewalks: your shoes don't get ruined with salt stains!
One thing that I miss from the Upper Midwest is walking outside after a good snowfall in the middle of winter. Everything is frozen and still. There's a peacefulness in the wintertime - when it's not 20 below or snowing/sleeting, that is Even when it snows here, we don't get anything like that...
Having spent 42 years in WI, I don't think I'll EVER miss the snow-although it may seem odd not having a white Christmas! My daughter moved to FL and said it's really funny to see palm trees and people with inflatable snowmen on their lawns down there. I am unsure what to expect here, but I'm glad I won't be freezing my tail off for MONThs, my car wont be getting stuck in the snow on my way to work, and our living spaces will not be full of tracked-in salt stains! I am not dreading winter as I have in years past.
I DO miss my basement. We had a basement and walk up attic-now we have neither. I don't know where people keep their stuff. We can't park in our garage-and we left a basement full of stuff when we moved.
5 Dog Lady here! This last weekend my husband and I came out to Raleigh for a house-hunting trip. On this board I have read so many perspectives on the area from natives, and those who have moved to Raleigh from the Northeast or further south, so I would thought I would share my thoughts coming in from a different area.
Firstly, based on what I had read on this forum and other sources, I had some expectations that differed from what I found the reality to be. Mostly that the area was not as flat as I thought it would be, the traffic was not as bad as I thought it would be, and things were not as far apart as I expected. These are all good things in my book!
I found the people to be very friendly. I did notice quite a few northeastern accents, but just as many Southern drawls and lots of people with no perceptible accent at all (Coming from the Midwest where we claim we are perfectly neutral - no accent at all ;-) So a nice mix of different people!
We were looking at homes north of Raleigh and I was not so surprised that all of them had septic systems, but really surprised that almost all of them were on wells. Your ground water must be much easier to get to than it is here!!!!
Stopped at Crabtree Mall on Sunday and it was booming!!! I will tell you that indoor malls are all but dead in the midwest in favor of large strip malls with a few big anchor stores in them and many smaller places. I can only dimly remember when going to an indoor mall here wasn't like walking in a mostly empty cavern.
While were were there we drove all around Falls Lake and it is HUGE and the countryside is really lovely. I love all the tall pines!!!
Even though we ended up choosing a house a ways out (Youngsville), we will be closer to a grocery store, pharmacy, etc. than we are today and our commute, while not short by any means, will be better than it is today.
So all in all, we are very excited to be moving next month and really looking forward to being there for the winter. Escaping the brutal midwestern winters will be quite a relief!
Thanks!
You will like it. Raleigh has a much better future than Kansas City in my opinion. Raleigh continues to have lots of new economic growth, a diverse educated population with in-migration from all over the US and abroad, and a mild climate with easy access to the coast or the mountains. It would be on my short list of places to move if a good opportunity came up in my career field.
Having spent 42 years in WI, I don't think I'll EVER miss the snow-although it may seem odd not having a white Christmas! My daughter moved to FL and said it's really funny to see palm trees and people with inflatable snowmen on their lawns down there. I am unsure what to expect here, but I'm glad I won't be freezing my tail off for MONThs, my car wont be getting stuck in the snow on my way to work, and our living spaces will not be full of tracked-in salt stains! I am not dreading winter as I have in years past.
I DO miss my basement. We had a basement and walk up attic-now we have neither. I don't know where people keep their stuff. We can't park in our garage-and we left a basement full of stuff when we moved.
If you ever want to see snow in NC you can drive over to the mountains over by Boone. They do get a decent amount of snow there every winter. I live in WI now and snow never bothered me much at all, but having a good snow vehicle like a Subaru makes an enormous difference.
I think indoor malls are still popular here because who wants to walk around shopping outside in 100 degree 90% humidity summers lol.
For those who haven't spent a Summer in the Triangle, you can expect some hot days and Summers can (but not always) have days over 100....and certainly there are many Summer days that are very humid but the two don't often come together. NC isn't Texas hot by any means. That claim above is Texas hot, not NC hot. Heat waves in NC are typically drier air than the humid Summer days that top out around 89 degrees with late afternoon thunderstorms.
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