Posted on 06/10/2004 12:13:18 PM PDT by Rate_Determining_Step
OK.
Living in Seattle sucks. It's June 10th and the rest of the country is basking in warm spring weather and it's 51 degrees outside.
I wouldn't mind TX, but the wife says she can't stand the heat. Is it really that hot in TX? All of TX? Are there any semi-moderate places there?
Been looking at NH. I don't like snow, but I'll put up with it for 3-4 months, etc.
Looking for some FReepmail from natives on the really skinny on weather, crime, taxes, etc.
I took a survey and it said El Paso is the place for me. The closest I've been to Texas is Utah.
I like decent metro areas (love Manhattan). But, I want a house with a 2 or 3 car garage, etc.
It'll be nice to move out of an area where I'm up to my armpits in lefties!
Thanks,
Both those areas are nice. Spent a few days in Fort Walton Beach (mid-panhandle) back in March, it was awesome -- not very crowded, and great seafood.
When we moved to Houston (1972) my husband had been down there many times on business and always spoke highly of it. We accepted the transfer from California without a second thought. Then, the company sent me down to look for a house. The plane was delayed and we arrived around midnight. Something was wrong with the jetway at Houston Intenational Airport (now George H. W. Bush airport) and we couldn't leave our plane directly into the airport. We sat parked on the tarmac for over an hour waiting while they fiddled with the controls. Finally they wheeled out portable stairs so we could get off the plane.
In the mean time they had turned off the engines so there was no AC on the plane. We were choking with heat by the time they finally let us out. I remember climbing down those stairs and feeling the humidity just hit me in the face as we crossed the tarmac to the cool sanctuary of the airport. It was about 1:30 AM and I remember it felt like I was walking into the basement laundry room of a hospital, it was so hot and sticky! Right then I thought, "Oh no, I've made a terrible mistake agreeing to this move!"
We were moving from a mild northern California climate but we finally got used to it. It took about a year before I dared to go outside in the daytime, except in my air conditioned car. I grew to love the Texas heat, however, and the Texas people. All my kids were educated in Texas. I've been gone from there 22 years, and I still miss it -- except for the AC bills and the traffic.
BTW, consider Huntsville, Alabama. Nice geographically / weather-wise. Affluence & high IQs abound due to NASA and other aerospace industries. Not a BIG city, but has everything you need.
Another nice, conservative area is the northwestern corner of Arkansas. Fayetteville/Springdale/Rogers/Bentonville. Wal-mart & Tyson foods are both headquartered there, so there are several billionaires in the area. Super-nice geography - low rolling mountains, lakes, etc. I used to live there, and I wanna move back.
The rest of the year, the weather is mostly wonderful, with relatively few cold days.
Houston is more conservative than Dallas, far more humid, has a slightly lower cost of living and slightly higher salaries. Houston is covered in corvettes, there seem to be relatively few in Dallas.
Houston politicians tend to be goofy, incompetent, and corrupt. Dallas politicians tend to be mean, nasty, incompetent, and corrupt race baiters.
The winter thing is a big negative. However, the big reason I will live nowhere else is NO income tax AND NO sales tax!
I live up on the Texas prairie about an hour south of the Red River. Rolling hills - horse country. Beautiful Spring weather (breezy, though) and the wildflowers are spectacular. We're an hour from downtown Dallas (great freeways) and no more than 30 minutes from great shopping (Plano, Frisco, Sherman) The summer temps are usually 10 degrees cooler than Dallas. You can see all the stars in the sky and the sunsets are a religious experience. Another beautiful place is Marble Falls in the hill country. Wood County in east Texas is also pretty if you like the woods and wildlife. Lots of fishing too. NO INCOME TAXES!!! Gasoline is usually cheaper than the rest of the country for some reason AND there is no better food than Texas food. We make some darn fine wine too. Come on down! There's lots of room. :>) Oh, by the way, there is a reason that my name is "Toomanygrasshoppers" *wink*
Did it snow when we were in high school? I don't remember that. I remember it snowing a couple of years after high school though. I remember sliding and bouncing off one of those brick mailboxes in the 442.
BTW, after a 10 year (worldwide) hunt, I settled on San Diego.
An interesting statistic, Seattle is vying to become the car-theft capital of the world. The chances of your car getting stolen here are greater here than in NYC, LA or El Paso.
You had appreciable snow the winter of 1982 -- shut down the city for at least a day. When you get snow, it's the worst kind -- slippery with the temp hovering around 32 -- dangerous. My college kids had to drive back to their schools in that dangerous snow -- Baylor, UT, Texas Tech. UT wasn't quite in session yet, so she stayed home an extra day. Baylor was already in Waco for Sorority Rush. Texas Tech insisted on getting on the road, much to my dismay. I persuaded Texas Tech to stop over at Baylor and stay with his sister for safety reasons. SOMEOME STOLE HIS ICE SCRAPER out of his unlocked car in that Baptist town while he spent the night! We are still laughing about it -- of all the things to steal! He was really POed But Lubbock gets snow almost every winter (thus the ice scraper which my husband had brought from a trip to Norway) and ice scrapers are virtually UNKNOWN in Waco -- certainly not sold at the 7-11! In the mean time, UT and I were home. Our schnauzer escaped the house, unbeknownst to us. My daughter was talking to her sorority sister who lived on the next street (on the other side of the golf course) and her friend said -- "You should see this dog out here playing in the snow on the golf course. He's wearing a little green sweater and he's throwing snow up in the air and trying to catch it just like a little person."
"Green sweater!" my daughter exclaimed, "That's Wolfie. He's not supposed to be out!"
Yeah, your last snow was in 1982. I remember it well!
1982 . . . late or early? Early, we were in eighth grade; late, freshman.
Did y'all catch Wolfie?
See #131 for a chronicle of the "great snow" in 1982 (Houston). I think it lasted a day, but it was memorable.
“See #131 for a chronicle of the "great snow" in 1982 (Houston). I think it lasted a day, but it was memorable.”
I remember that day very well. I do not remember if it was a school day, but if it was school was cancelled. My friends and I were outside before 8 am having snowball fights. By 11 am the only snow that was not melted was on the cars or roofs. We collected some of the snow in bags and placed it in the freezer.
Lubbock gets snow every winter?!@#?
Sure, maybe a sprinkle or two, and maybe some freezing rain in February, but nothing remotely like Seattle where he's from.
Basically, 2-3 times a year, 5-10 days total of the year there will be some snow/ice on the ground that quickly melts, usually by that afternoon.
Midland/Odessa is abot the same, probably a little warmer and more sheltered from the wind.
That was my first full spring & summer in Washington. I remember when I moved to Wisconsin I was warned about the grey days we get here sometimes -- maybe a week. I replied, "How about 3 months with no sun?" remembering that spring of '83.
We've been enduring about 3 weeks of mostly rain right now, and I'm thoroughly sick of it. That, high property taxes, high sales taxes, and high income taxes make Wisconsin particularly unattractive, IMO.
The main problem in Lubbock that my son encountered was icy roads. He was on the track team and coach used to "pace" them in a jeep and make the distance guys run fartliks (sp?) on an icy hill. That just about did him in. He pulled a muscle and eventually quit the team.
There's a lot of great information here. I'll have to go over it carefully and keep it coming. If there's a great place for a FReeper family that hasn't been mentioned yet, type away!
That about sums it up. LOL!
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