Homestead mailing list

["Lisa K.V. Perry" <lisakvperry AT gmail.com>]

On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 9:03 PM, <paxamicus AT earthlink.net> wrote:

>
> We have made several house hunting trips up north (Mass, VT, NH) over
> the last view months and I have realized something. We are New
> Englanders who can't live in the cold. I was miserable every dreary
> grey day.


Yes!  My husband was raised in New England. I was raised Midwest. I met him
when I lived in CT and we moved to Portland ME as a married couple.

We tried living in Charleston SC. Loved the history and some of the culture,
not to mind getting to go to the beach for just 2 hours on a Saturday just
because and not having to pack or drive forever to do so. But hot and humid
w/ a capital H---from May 1 until October something.

We moved back to ME, to live in NE and raise boys. We forgot what six months
of winter was like, followed by mud season and black flies. (No offense
meant Susan Jane, I still have a soft spot for ME). Our blood had thinned.
Winter was too long.

Interestingly enough, winter in MN used to be long, cold and mostly sunny.
The climate there has changed like everywhere, though I understand it was
cold and snowy this winter.

But as much as I know how beautiful NC and KY and TN are, and that
> there are good deals to be had there, I am afraid that despite
> our twenty years in Virginia, we'll put a foot badly wrong. I have
> found it an uphill struggle to be liberal in a very red state,
> sometimes.
>

I understand that, too.

We found Floyd County VA. Most the time we love it here, truly. We're Royal
Blue (or at least 1:1 Blue to Red ratio). 45 minutes to Roanoke (40-50
depending on where you are in the county) and 30-35 minutes no. to
Blacksburg (VA Tech).

We wanted to live in/near Asheville NC. We may yet end up there. We love it
as much, if not more so than Floyd, but land prices there need an awful
economy to threaten to bring them back to earth.

>
> Differences can be so huge over such simple things.


Indeed. But I'm hopeful for world peace and purple states.


> So here's what I want...the cultural equivalent to Brattleboro, Vt, or
> Ithaca, NY,    in NC, Tenn, Kentucky or WV.    IF it's not green and
> rolling I will dry up and die.


The cultural equivalent in NC is Asheville. Will follow this thread as I'd
like to know as well. Floyd is a mini-Asheville. Emphasis on mini, but all
the same stuff you find in Asheville. We even have a store called The
Harvest Moon.

Lisa