Posted on 12/04/2001 8:28:05 AM PST by hattend
I am looking for suggestions from FReepers in lower 48 for city/state recommendations on where to retire.
I have pretty much decided on the western US (excluding the Pacific Coast states) and would lean to the southwestern states. I would stay in Alaska but I am tired of the long winter nights.
Would prefer acreage but you can try to convince me to live in town. :-)
If you know of any on-line newspaper links that have the classified, a URL would be appreciated.
Thanks
Don
You and your husband might consider becoming pilot/escort drivers (aka: flag cars) after your retirement. Escorts drive those cars/pickups with lights, flags, and signs that accompany over-size loads. You'll see them moving factory manufactured homes, large boats, roof trusses, etc. An escort's function is to warn the motoring public of the presence of an overdimensional load to insure the safe delivery of the load. Lots of retirees here in Florida are escorts...they work when they want, see the country, meet new people, and get paid to do it!
Unfortunately, Jesse Helms is retiring as our Senator.
We had planned to have Thanksgiving Dinner this year on our pontoon party boat while cruising around Elephant Butte Lake enjoying the scenery.
Drove the Motor Home all the way from Las Cruces to Elephant Butte Lake only to discover we had left both the boat keys and the keys to get onto the marina at home. Not a huge problem we went to plan. B
Turned around and drove back south to Caballo Lake state Park. There we took a long walk around the lake shore before chowing down on our fried chicken and potato salad meal with all the trimmin's. Outdoors at a Picnic table in the park.
Then we watched a movie on the RV VCR took naps and relaxed. After that we had another pleasant walk to wake us up and then enjoyed the leisurely drive back to Las Cruces.
Southern New Mexico is pure Hell in the winter!! I hear Chicago is nice this time of year!! :-)
This place really is terrible, so you should never, under any circumatance, even remotely consider retiring to Upper East Tennessee.
And that goes for all retirees. Choose Buffalo over Upper East Tennessee. Thanks
Um...........I dunno. I live in Raleigh, NC and have for the past seven years (that's a record for us), but I've lived in many States: California (total of over a dozen years: Merced, Davis, Sacramento), Texas (also a fair number of years: San Antonio, Lubbock, Abilene, Austin), Colorado (went to the AF Academy in C-Springs; four years), Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, Massachusetts, Tennessee, North Carolina........you get the idea.
NC is ok; VERY pretty..........but dull as dirt and Raleigh is, believe it or not, more expensive than Sacramento. That's a fact. Nice climate, etc., but still.............
As for Asheville: It's drop-dead gorgeous..............and home to THOUSANDS of ultra-freaky, Devil-worshipping, crytal-gazing/kissing, long-haired satanic maggots. Think I'm kidding? I wouldn't let my oldest daughter attend university there due to Asheville's well-deserved reputation for such demonic bulls**t inhabiting its core and environs. I really am serious. Damned shame, though; really is pretty there.
Sacramento was pretty cool; hour-and-a-half from anywhere (SF, Reno, Tahoe, Napa Valley, etc.). Lots to do, but crappy State politics (as we FReepers know all too well).
Colorado has its beauty, no doubt, if you live in the right area............but I found the people there to be a**holes (sorry, CO FReepers, but it's true).
If there's anything I've learned living all over the U.S., its that the PEOPLE.......followed by climate.........make or break an area as far as quality of life is concerned.
Coolest people? Probably Texans. I love 'em. Northern Californians are VERY cool, as well. Don't fall into the trap of believing that all of CA is like SF or LA. Far from it. Most of CA is made up of agricultural land........it's a quite conservative State. Unfortunately, the liberal (and HEAVILY populated) Bay Area and LA region trump the Conservatives in elections.........at least for now.
I'd look at Montana. GORGEOUS state. The desert SW? Well......................if you're into desert (I'm not; not by a long shot).
I wish you the best in your hunt.
I almost forgot Tennessee.
I'm not quite sure what it is, to be perfectly honest, but there's just something about eastern Tennessee................
I'm talking about the Knoxville-Chattanooga corridor and that region. It's positively, unbelievably gorgeous (HINT: just "this side" of Asheville, NC........the topic of "our previous discussion above"). No State income tax in TN. Just....................beautiful. We've driven through that area many times in our travels and it always just makes our hearts stop. I'd give it a serious look.
"per capita" is still an aggregate figure. Consider the percentage of people in Arkansas that receive (tax free) government benefits. Someone's payin' those people's per-capita, and I remember the govmint folks bein' excite that in 1998 they exceeded 59% graduation rate from High School.
We read, when we were moving there that home prices were very low....on average, but when we looked for houses? we experienced the same result. Statistics look very different when you look past the averages.
c'mon....the bent one was entrenched for what 12 years there? whaddya expect
Oh well, could be I just didn't know how measure such things, but I do remember having to report the number of rooms in my household for my personal property tax. Then there was my state income tax, .....hhhhhmmm.
LIke I said, it's gooooooooorgeous.
You aren't kidding. I have family over there and go often.
On a recent trip, we went to a festival in a downtown square. Ended up people watching. I couldn't believe all the weirdos.
I've heard that N. of Boone, around Surrey Co. is very reasonable.
Buy an RV! If I was retired, I'd be on the road constantly.
We have an awesome country. Every single part of it that I've seen has its' own beauty and its' own uniquiness.
I've been lucky enough to see the plains of Kansas and Nebraska abloom with spring wildflowers. Lucky enough to see the flatlands of the Texas Panhandle. Lucky enough to appreciate the dry gasps of the pioneers, making their way across the Great Salt Basin.
When my kids go to college, I'm going to full time RV - interspersed with trips to the Caribbean, etc.
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