lived in concord nc for a while. would love to go back.. wife says NFW right now.. but she will cave someday.. i may be old and grye.. but she will cave.
lived in concord nc for a while. would love to go back.. wife says NFW right now.. but she will cave someday.. i may be old and grye.. but she will cave.
You don't have a monopoly on toothless hillbillies riding in lifted trucks. We have those here too. We also have both kinds of music. Country AND western, and whether you're in the TSC, or the grocery store, that's what you're hearing.
That's the Devil's music boy! All I get on FM at the shop is gospel & bluegrass.
poopshovel wrote:You don't have a monopoly on toothless hillbillies riding in lifted trucks. We have those here too. We also have both kinds of music. Country AND western, and whether you're in the TSC, or the grocery store, that's what you're hearing.That's the Devil's music boy! All I get on FM at the shop is gospel & bluegrass.
Try: www.accuradio.com
And I will refine my TN recommendation to Chattanooga....it has come a long way since I lived there when I was a kid.
In reply to Sput:
The Army's largest port is in Wilmington, it is called Sunny Point.
They get really pissy if you kayak in their area.
Also, I would love to live near Asheville. Maybe when I retire, until then my job keeps me in the Triangle area.
Curmudgeon wrote: I have stood in this exact spot. The view is breathtaking, the picture does not do it justice.
Good Lord.
Sput wrote: Born and raised in upstate New York (Sodus), lived in Buffalo, Pittsburgh, two places in California, northern Illinois, back to upstate New York, and now we've been in Wilmington, NC for 15 years. I'll never move again. Good sized town, nice beaches, good health care system, college town (UNCW). The comments about military is incorrect - they're up in Jacksonville and Fayetteville. Seriously, consider Wilmington or Savannah, GA.
How many hurricanes have hit Wilmington? 
Savannah is beautiful but man the sand gnats...
Curmudgeon wrote: Yes it would. Unfortunately, the mountain tops are all 'spensive as hell. Bad as beachfront property. The Eagle's Nest hillclimb is held here each year: http://www.eaglesnestbe.com/exp_overview.php The place is absolutely beautiful. Mere words cannot describe. There's no pricing on the website, but some people who have a reason to know say the unimproved homesites by themselves go for anywhere from $300k on the mountainsides to over $1M for the peaks. I have stood in this exact spot. The view is breathtaking, the picture does not do it justice.
We stayed across the street from this place for Matt's bday a couple weeks ago. LOOONG range views, and the house was actually a lot nicer than this one. Three levels, big wet bar in basement, 5br/3ba, amazing buid quality. Looked up tax records. Sold a couple years ago for $300k
http://www.escapetoblueridge.com/cabins/cabin.php?cabinid=69
Brett_Murphy wrote: Asheville is also getting really, really expensive. (no affiliation, etc. just listing for demonstration purposes) http://asheville.craigslist.org/reo/2812143880.html versus lakeside above Durham http://raleigh.craigslist.org/reo/2836530392.html
Minutes from VIR
for what it's worth, coming from an 18 year old born and bred in Richmond, I'm going to have to throw my vote in for Danville/Halifax County in Virginia. from my grandparent's farm to the gate at VIR is right at 45-50 minutes depending on traffic and how hard you're willing/able to push some of the backroads on the way. lots of great fun backroads, too, if you know where to look, but do NOT put even one toe outside the letter of the traffic law in Charlotte County if there's a cop within 5 miles of you, they literally make most of their revenue from traffic tickets (I don't know the exact figure but it's north of 75% IIRC)
"Asheville, NC...10,000 lesbians can't be wrong". I've actually seen that on a bumper sticker.
I have worked several jobs in Asheville. Nice city, but too freaky and expensive for me . I love the surrounding area, but the influx of yankees the past several years have driven land prices way up. The mortgage meltdown though has lowered prices of finished homes quite a bit. We have performed Phase I Environmental Site Assessments on several foreclosed mountain top developments. Most of these should never have been built anyway. Look for it to get real hard for any more of these developments to be built. The locals are getting really sore over the way they are scarring the mountains.
One way yankees indear themselves to our mountain natives is to sit around the local restaurant and brag about what elevation they are located at. The higher, the more status you have. Price doesn't seem to matter.
Funny. For Blue Ridge, it's not elevation, it's whether or not your house is on the lake. The lake is a big brown mud puddle controlled by a TVA damn, and is often so low it's downright UGLY. Yet people were spending 500k to a million an acre when times were good. Crazy.
I may head down to the area around the Boone, NC area for a Miata tour this year. It looks like a nice area. Anybody on this board from that area?
poopshovel wrote:Curmudgeon wrote: Yes it would. Unfortunately, the mountain tops are all 'spensive as hell. Bad as beachfront property. The Eagle's Nest hillclimb is held here each year: http://www.eaglesnestbe.com/exp_overview.php The place is absolutely beautiful. Mere words cannot describe. There's no pricing on the website, but some people who have a reason to know say the unimproved homesites by themselves go for anywhere from $300k on the mountainsides to over $1M for the peaks. I have stood in this exact spot. The view is breathtaking, the picture does not do it justice.We stayed across the street from this place for Matt's bday a couple weeks ago. LOOONG range views, and the house was actually a lot nicer than this one. Three levels, big wet bar in basement, 5br/3ba, amazing buid quality. Looked up tax records. Sold a couple years ago for $300k
The house I linked is just outside Banner Elk, NC and is at the top of Eagle's Nest hillclimb road. Eagle's Nest is a highly restricted planned development, it includes the hillclimb road (built with input from CCR-SCCA members), a huge 'teepee village', some 40 miles of equestrian trails on one side of the mountain and a like number of dirt bike trails on the other, hiking trails, a HUGE gathering place type lodge (I'm talking probably 8k square feet open dining area under one roof, that doesn't include the kitchen or conference room), you name it. It's really funny that the lodge is roughly at the northeastern edge of the property, you can walk to the property boundary, look down and there's a 1960's vintage mobile home that's occupied by some of the local mountain folk.
DeadSkunk wrote: I may head down to the area around the Boone, NC area for a Miata tour this year. It looks like a nice area. Anybody on this board from that area?
Not from there but been to the area many times. You'll like it.
Boone right across the mountain from me.
Touristy little town, fun, very nice.
Boone is a cool little college town. Mack on some lady Mountaineers for me.
I spent a year in Biloxi years ago. Then it was a small town. Now I don't know. Just outside of Myrtle Beach is nice. Discovered south Delaware last year. They have three seasons and snow somtimes. Nice beaches.
Re: Wilmington, NC
Sunny Point may be the Army's largest terminal, but that does not mean a lot of soldiers. It's big in # of acres because that where they store things that blow up. Same reason they don't want you kayaking near there.
Hurricanes? Sure. Quite a few. But we have never left town and worst damage was half a tree and a few shingles. And we are 1.25 miles from the ocean as the pelican flies.
I guess it depends on what you're looking for. Just saying, after where we've been and what we've seen, this will do just fine.
In reply to Zomby woof:
You never did say what you needed when you moved, just a location. That will help with alot of recommendations. East Tennessee, Western NC has some industry, Asheville has grown but if memory serves those are large companies and have no problem laying off people. (been scoping and looking up hiring trends recently)
So do you need emplyment, work from home, looking to retire or just need to up root and start over.
What are you looking for other than south?
Meh, I'd say stay out of NC you damn yankees, but there are already so many here the place is ruined.
Honestly, Raleigh isn't that great anymore, the traffic is murder and the drivers are idjits... and now we have tolls, yippee!
Raleigh beats the f'n pants off of Albany, NY circa 1996 when I moved here.
But yes, I-40 is super stressful during the 3 hours of rush hour.
Having been raised in the midwest and living the better part of 18 yrs in the southeast maybe I can help.
a. Atlanta - crazy traffic, reasonable taxes, very metropolitan, and lots of really nice folks. Pretty diverse businesses located there. A flight out of Hartsfield will get you anywhere you want to go.
b. Eastern NC - if you like hunting, fishing and the beach that's for you. Rural is the key word.
c. Knoxville, TN - a bit on the conservative side, nice hard working folks. Too far out in the country and you'll find congregations dancing with snakes and calling it the 'will of God' if someone gets bit by a rattler and dies. That IS the truth. Cheap real estate and no income taxes are a huge plus.
d. Va. Beach, VA - very transient area, as alot of military folks are in/out of the area all the time. Lots of Europeans have located there over the years for Bosch, Stihl, etc. Real estate used to be reasonable before alot of folks from 'up north' started buying retirement homes there. Get used to hurricane season, and remember there are only 2 main highways out of there if you want to evacuate and one of them happens use Chesapeake Bay Tunnel. Taxes and yearly car inspection can sometimes be worse than a yearly physical at the doctor.
e. Winston Salem, NC - VIR an hour away, Charlotte Motor Speedway an hour away, CMP...2 hours on the outside. Blue Ridge parkway close by, Asheville 2 hours away, skiing about 5-7 hours away. Lots to offer except a diversity of larger companies.......had a hard time finding a job in my field when we lived there. If I had to do it again,......that's where I'd be.
RAZINGNUT wrote: a. Atlanta - crazy traffic, reasonable taxes, very metropolitan, and lots of really nice folks. Pretty diverse businesses located there. A flight out of Hartsfield will get you anywhere you want to go.
Hate it here, traffic sucks, can't wait to move to a more rural area.
Anti-stance wrote:RAZINGNUT wrote: a. Atlanta - crazy traffic, reasonable taxes, very metropolitan, and lots of really nice folks. Pretty diverse businesses located there. A flight out of Hartsfield will get you anywhere you want to go.Hate it here, traffic sucks, can't wait to move to a more rural area.
Wanna come up to Medina Ohio? Pretty rural up here!
Sorry I'm in this so late, but here are my takes (after briefly scanning the other posts)
It will depend entirely on your goals. I have lived in TX, LA, and GA, and spent a very large amount of time in FL. I have family in NC, SC, and VA so I've spent a good bit of time there as well. Here are my opinions.
TX is fantastic, especially the Austin area. It combines the best of conservative legislation and liberal surroundings. You can carry a rifle while wearing a tuxedo and a stetson into an opera and no one will bat an eye. If you prefer the more conservative surroundings, stay 10 miles outside of town. If you prefer the more liberal surroundings, go downtown.
LA is 95% Deliverance and 5% New Orleans. New-O is fantastic. Its not clean, and it has its share of crime, but what an artistic town that is full of love. Its truly a town that (despite its crime) I felt safe in. Sounds weird but I was constantly surrounded by love. Die-hard residents didn't care where I was from, I was there now it that's all they cared about.
FL is just not really an option for me, personally. You have rural areas where the main industry is either a power plant or an alligator farm. You have smaller Metro areas like Tampa that are OK, but they are basically struggling economies surrounded by immigrant farms and retirement trailer parks. Then you have the other big-money cities like Miami and Naples which are just like Tampa, its just that the old people are Jewish, rich, and angry. Not to mention, I don't really prefer my summers to be 105 with 90% humidity and still have to put up with frequently freezing winters.
Most of the southern coastal states are pretty uptight and still have a great deal of racial tension. Its not tangible or spoken, but the demographics speak volumes. Much of the "nicer" areas of NC and SC are big money republican conservative stuff.
TN, MS, and AR are sportsman's paradises. Lots of camo, lots of WalMart, and that's just in the cities. Last time I was at Opryland I wore a suit and I sat behind a lady (scratch that... not lady... "female") who was wearing a hoodie and camo stretch pants that said "juicy" across the ass.
For comparison, NYC is a place where even the lower-crust would wear a tie to a broadway show. Lots of pretense, lots of "appearance," and lots of class segregation. TX is the opposite. Its a rural state that happens to have some cities with some classy notions. There is little or no pretense, nobody cares how much money you make (unless you're in dallas... whole different story. Dallas is a wannabe NYC) and there is never a shortage of great stuff to do. Art, music, history, everything.
Weather is another consideration. Most of the coastal states will have the same exact climate you have now... just 20 degrees warmer. 100 degrees and humid in the summer, and 30 degrees in the winter. As you go west (and away from the Atlantic's influence) you get more temperate climates. TX gets some hot summers; 100+, but very low humidity. Winters in Austin I typically saw some flurries once or twice, but freezes were minimal and often times were 25 degrees for a few nights.
Central TX has tons of wonderful lakes, fishing, hunting, and hiking. Insects are at a minimum. Very few flies, mosquitoes, etc. Gasoline is cheap. When I left it was hovering just under $3/gal but that was a few weeks ago. Everything west of I-35 between Austin and S.A. is beautiful hill country; massive aquifers, spings, lakes, rivers, wineries.
I would suggest taking a really hard look at Wimberley, TX. Seriously.
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