OTOH, not everyone has close family, and not everyone’s family members stays within proximity to each other…so sometimes those factors don’t come into consideration. Lacking the family tie thing, and maybe–in addition–having moved around enough that you don’t even have particularly deep community roots anywhere would give you a sense that anywhere would do (provided it meets your requirements.)
The truth is, if my dad hadn’t left his home town, I’d now live near Cowtime, or–if my father-in-law hadn’t left his hometown, I might now live in Sunbury Pennsylvania.
Bloomington, Indiana is a beautiful little college town, but the fly fishing is not ideal and I’m not sure you can hook up with many sessions. Still the other musical stuff should be great seeing as how IU has a great music school.
We’re talking about retiring to Columbus Ohio. Not exactly a college town, but it’s our alma mater and we love Columbus. Lovely springs. Less snow than Cleveland.
We’ll, not really. Cincinnati has glacier created run off valleys. But you try riding a bike up Hamilton Ave., Colerain Ave., Straight Street, Ravine Street, Queen City, etc. and tell me we don’t have hills.
I was born in Indiana, and after being in southern Arizona for 30 years I am back now in my home state. Where I am living is close to 40 degress of lattitude, which I think is pretty optimum: four distinct seasons with temperatures not too hot or not too cold (most of the time). Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois have some of the finest farmland in the world, which, if you can keep it out of the hands of corporate agribusiness, should be able to sustain the people comfortably once they discover new ways to live on and work with the land. Being able to grow crops without irrigation is an added blessing. Now that I am retired, I have thought about where I would like to move. I am not so ready, as I once was, to pull up stakes and move elsewhere. I am content where I am, although staying somewhere warmer for a couple of months in the wintertime would be a good idea. Las Cruces, New Mexico is a small college town in the desert that has become a mecca for retirees. If I win the lottery, I might consider Las Cruces as a snowbird escape.
Retirement life at 8,800’..Pikes Peak 8 miles distant and the summit, another mile straight up. Two years ago…late September…Aspens gold; “the hardest hue to hold”.
Del Gue: Ain’t this somethin’? I told my pap and mam I was going to be a mountain man; acted like they was gut-shot. “Make your life go here, son. Here’s where the people is. Them mountains is for Indians and wild men.” “Mother Gue”, I says “the Rocky Mountains is the marrow of the world,” and by God, I was right. Keep your nose in the wind and your eye along the skyline.
I ain’t never seen 'em, but my common sense tells me the Andes is foothills, and the Alps is for children to climb! Keep good care of your hair! These here is God’s finest scupturings! And there ain’t no laws for the brave ones! And there ain’t no asylums for the crazy ones! And there ain’t no churches, except for this right here! And there ain’t no priests excepting the birds. By God, I are a mountain man, and I’ll live 'til an arrow or a bullet finds me. And then I’ll leave my bones on this great map of the magnificent…
