[NorthernPhoenix]

Lots of good info in this thread. I moved to VT from MA. I find that, as someone mentioned, getting involved in your community opens up tons of doors. For friendship, networking, etc.

One thing that nobody has mentioned is the unpaved roads and subsequent mud! Took me a while to get used to. I am a car nut and always have at least one "toy" car, which usually gets washed after every time I drive it, but within three weeks of moving to VT, that plan had to go out the window! A drive from my house (or either of the two houses I rented previously) to anywhere results in dirt and dust all over the car unless the climate that day is dry and without wind. It annoyed the heck out of me at first, then I got used to it. Now I tend to wash my cars once a week or so, and I am happy with that.

[Sierrajeff]

Originally Posted by NorthernPhoenix

One thing that nobody has mentioned is the unpaved roads and subsequent mud! Took me a while to get used to. I am a car nut and always have at least one "toy" car, which usually gets washed after every time I drive it, but within three weeks of moving to VT, that plan had to go out the window! A drive from my house (or either of the two houses I rented previously) to anywhere results in dirt and dust all over the car unless the climate that day is dry and without wind. It annoyed the heck out of me at first, then I got used to it. Now I tend to wash my cars once a week or so, and I am happy with that.

Yup! That, plus salt in winter. Caused a lot of spousal angst for us - DH loves his Jeep (souped up with lots of after market equipment), and he was pulling his hair out over the rust he was seeing after just a few winter months in Vermont, as compared to the prior 6 years in Arizona.

[cgregor]

Road salt and mud season are the primary reasons a lot of families have a "snowbanker," the vehicle they sacrifice to the Gods of the Two Seasons.

[happeemommee]

I'm used to the salt and dust, etc on the cars from where I live now. Lol, seems like no matter how many times between Oct and May you wash the car, it's always covered with dust / salt. Honestly, I'm not worried about winter, being called a flatlander, or even prices, but I'm not sure about "mud season". I'm assuming the mud will only be on back / dirt roads from melting snow? Is that right? ( yes, i know it's a dumb question)

[cgregor]

You also get the mud/salt spray from paved roads as everything is melting. A lot of people oil undercoat their cars every fall, before the first snowfall. There are other methods as well, but oiling is the most common.

[Cackalassie]

Happee - us, too! Don't give a fig about all the rest, it's the mud season I wonder about most. But figure by that time I'll be so damned happy that a cool summer is around the bend, it won't matter. I think we have a similar thing in the NC mtns - we don't want Florida or Northerners coming in with their mountain-carving mansions, and then folks coming in to retire that don't want to live near hillbillies or Indians. No matter where you go, there you are.

[Sierrajeff]

Originally Posted by Cackalassie

it's the mud season I wonder about most. But figure by that time I'll be so damned happy that a cool summer is around the bend, it won't matter.

That was always my attitude - I never minded mud season nearly as much as the late-winter doldrums of mid-January to early March.

Late winter to me is blah and grey, the "ooh and ahh" factor of pretty snowfalls having well worn off. I just want it over. But when things have thawed enough for there to be mud, that means I can start getting out and working without freezing my bippy [extra points if you're old enough to remember Laugh In!], and it means that an explosion of green growth is just around the corner.

[Sporin]

Originally Posted by joe moving

for better or worse, there's not enough natives left here to call people flatlander.

Yeah, I haven't heard much of that in the last 10 years. Chances are anyone rude enough to call you a flatlander only moved here the year before you did.

I've always found folks around here (and on the NH side) to be generally very kind and welcoming. It's not the 'show up at your door with a pie uninvited' type of welcoming you'll find down south perhaps. New Englanders are much more of a wave and a head not types, they stay out of each others' business, but they'll warm up to you.

Get involved with local clubs, civic organizations, church or something and you'll meet a ton of people happy to become your friend.

We've never met anyone cold or unwelcoming but it wasn't until we started going to a church (UU, Hartland, VT) that we really grew our circle of friends in a major way. Now we are regularly at people's houses for pot lucks and socializing and playing music, and such. It's just too isolated here to organically build freindships without some, central meeting place or organization to rally around.

[Dilnca]

Really research where you move--

We originally wound up in a tourist/second home village purely by chance. Our first winter was isolated and brutal. Because we were only a handful of non-second home owners, we were locked out of what little went on in the village.

People also assumed because we came from a different area of the country we were well off. When we went to find a rental place, we were shown houses to buy. We could not afford--and still cannot--ski or play the sports of winter here. Coming up with an extra few bucks for "anything fun" is extremely difficult.

Rental markets here are brutally tough. You often find yourself priced out of places or living with drug users, smokers, and so on. This has been much worse since the heart of the Recession.

There is a casual acceptance of drug use.

Many people work two jobs here, even if they have one good one. So that makes not so great place to work--again depending on your town-much more of a slippery slope. You see the same jobs in the paper or online every season but the wages have gone down.

There are more volunteer (free) jobs in my area than real ones unless you are a nurse or doctor or technician. Of course, you can always wait tables or work at a store but as you get older, this becomes physically limited.

Finally, I see that people love to be thought of as politically correct and liberal but they are select in what and who they embrace. Companies scramble to hire "minorities" and stick them on the cover of any publication they can find.

There are some nice pluses--the roads are uncrowded, you can see lots of nature, air is pure.