That's out, that one's out and so is this one. Actually, these are all out too. Marking those was pretty easy. All the northern parts of the United States are X'd out with a red sharpie. If I'm going to see any kind of white fluff falling from the heaven's, it's off the list. In fact, any state north of Interstate 40 and any state that's heading East is a definite OUT! Florida's a no, the same with Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. Louisiana is a no and Texas is a big hell no. Austin's a lot fun~bbq joints, loads of great thrift shops. Music ain't too bad either, but not really my scene. Same with Nashville. Cool place to visit for a couple of days and that's about it. However, I have to mention, the folks at the Grand Ole Opry weren't very nice!
Asheville, North Carolina may a possibility, but I seriously doubt it. Land and housing is very cheap. People are friendly. Didn't see a problem with finding a job. Two summer's ago, "hubby" and I drove through the Appalachians to Virginia, Nashville and Memphis. After our 5 day excursion, we decided to head back home via New Orleans to visit friends, who recently moved back after Katrina. As we were heading in that direction, we made a call to let our friends know that we were coming in for a visit. Thank god we did. Our friends moved back to North Carolina and literally, just moved in to their new house. So we turned around and headed toward Asheville.
Driving down a 2 lane winding road with nothing but truckers speeding pass you at 70 miles an hour, in the dark no less, is a hell of a scary thing. I swear, I wished I had been sedated. I was holding on for dear life, gritting my teeth with my feet pressed to the floorboard. It was a Fourth of July night and the only lighting we had besides our headlights, was the few sporadic fireworks we saw shooting up in the sky. Then we had to deal with headlights from oncoming trucks heading in our direction. Man, it was terrifying! We were trying to call our friends to find out exactly how much longer it was going to take to get off of this winding mountain back road, but we kept getting cut off. We finally arrived to the small town of Weaverville, with a long parade of people heading back towards their parked cars, after the fireworks were finished.
We stayed in Weaverville for a couple days. Our gracious friends had us sleeping in their bedroom, as they had just moved in that very weekend, and they ended up sleeping with their kids. Being in Asheville for a couple days, we got a pretty good overview of the city. The way to Asheville from our friends house in Weaverville is a 10 minute ride down Weaverville Hwy, which is famous for Robert Mitchum's 1958 movie "Thunder Road". A lot of the scenes were filmed at "The Log Cabin Motor Court" on that Weaverville Hwy, known at the time as Merrimon Road. There's 18 rustic cabins in back with a restaurant in front on the highway. "Hubby" and I even tossed the idea that we would buy the motor court cabins and turn each one into a "theme" type cabin. It was a great idea at the time, but then we thought about the winters, which would be worse than where we were living at the moment. Another obstacle that might work against us was the fact that "hubby" is not an earthy, wood-chopping, eco-friendly, granola crunching kind of guy. He's a true-blooded Englishman~sometimes over-bearing without realizing it, and a hearty meat and potatoes lover. Anything healthy, he won't eat.
The majority of the people in this part of North Carolina are quite young, have kids, animals and live a pretty simple lifestyle. We necessarily don't fit into this profile. It's a great place to raise kids, where you can leave all the materialistic yearnings on the back porch. So with that in mind, I guess you could say that chances are, any state south of the Interstate 40 heading west will most likely be OUT! Can't really see us living in New Mexico or in the Arizona desert. And I don't really want to move back to California, just yet.
to be continued...
2 comments:
don't know where in the US you guys can move and be happy except LA or Vegas! Can't see you 2 in bumfuk towns in the rest of the country. Nope cant see it!
No way Jose! Maybe Seattle? But there is snow there so i guess thats out. U got a real problem on your hands. Close your eyes and pick a spot!
Your experiences driving thru the states was so interesting. That winding road would have given me a stroke! Its good that you saw all those places cause now you know where you dont want to live! How about a B&B somewhere?
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