Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Why do you live where you do??

I grew up and lived in various places in Michigan until I came to Alaska for work in 2007. Probably moving back to my family property in two years when I retire to the UP of Michigan on the St. Marys river to be closer to family. We can fish and hunt a lot easier than it can be done in Alaska. I enjoy my time spent up here but the cost of living and travel has become alot tougher to get out to the road system. We have a place in Kenai as well so we will have options.

I added it up, I've lived in 15 or so different places, not different houses but different towns since we left the East for SoCal when I was a kid. Only one family home in SoCal too, so most of the moves have been all mine, or since married, all ours.

Lived in two different parts of PA 20 some years apart after moving back to Cali and then moving from SoCal to NorCal for school and work. Lived in Southern OR for a summer. Lived in two completely different parts of AZ, way different they might has well been different states, but then again that's the way it is Out West. Lived in NV for awhile while still working in AZ. Wife's work took her back to the Central Valley of CA, I left AZ/NV for a job in Juneau, then back to CA where the wife was when that job ended. Got a seasonal job in E.WA, lived in an RV there 8 months of the year, then went back to wherever the wife had ended up, from the Central Valley to the Sucktomento area, to the Potlandia OR metro area, and finally to here in a part of California that really isn't like any well known part of CA other than some silly lines drawn on a map by some folks long ago.

Having moved from the East, and then lived there a couple more times as an adult, but having spent most of my time Out West, I'd find it hard to live back there full time unless it was in an area like we lived in NW PA with a huge National Forest and public land. I've grown up as a "don't fence me in type" where there is lots of land to roam when off of private land.

And, I grew up with "hills" out here that are taller than most "mountains" on the East side of the Rockies and found it hard living where folks called some ridges "the mountains". Yeah, they were pretty steep and rough at times, but they topped out lower than the elevation of our house now. I can see a nearly 10,000' peak from my front door and it's only about 20 miles as the crow flies. Drive down the road a couple of miles, or climb the hill behind the house, and I can see Mt Shasta 100 miles away (screw a 3 mile view in Kentucky, I can lean back in the chair an look out the window and see farther than that).

I grew up with deserts too, and I never saw one of those back East either. See my sig line for an explanation of why I like deserts. This area I live in even qualifies. Not much out here and if a few more folks leave the county by the next census I'll enjoy it even more.

Family is great, I love mine, I just can't live where some of them do. The folks have passed on, we left the extended family in the 60s, in the hell that is the large metro areas of back east, and I'm eternally grateful the old man did that. One sibling still lives in the hell that is SoCal, another is renting a place there so he can work there during the week and go back to the desert in AZ on weekends, another lives in the mountains of AZ, and the last one lives in the "mountains" of NC where his son and family are established. That one's daughter lives in the Sierras about a 6 hr drive south of here. She's the closest relative I have in regards to distance. If one can't be happy living where "family" lives, honestly how is that helping the family if one is stressed and grumpy (er?) all the time? I could probably live where the two siblings are in AZ, mountains or desert. The NC one? I'm not so sure. I look on the map and there isn't much open land around, and awful lot of small communities, a big National Park though, but places are not cheap there and there's a lot of folks for my tastes. And it's pretty far from a desert.

I'm here because the wife got another good paying job here before she retired, we found a really decent property outside of town. Said property is surrounded on three sides by BLM land. I had an eye injury that prevented me from doing the job with lots of overtime in E WA, so rather than work 8 months a year up there earning the same amount as I could being retired I left that job and came down here. Now, we'd like to move, but there's not many places west of the Rockies we could find an equivalent situation for what we pay here. Yeah, CA politics suck, Yugely! That's the biggest drawback. There's trout streams and warmwater fishing around here, deer and antelope should one want to put in for a tag or over the counter tag areas just a couple hour's drive away (lotta folks back east have to drive that far to their "camps", here it's almost all public land), elk, the area is a well known waterfowl hunting area, quail and chukar and some grouse, ground squirrel/gopher hunting all around, no bear hunting in our local mountains but open areas are only an hour or so away, and jackrabbit and coyote hunting is open year round.

If we were rich, I'd be pushing for a move. We're not, so I'm just gonna be happy, mostly, with what we have.

Now, if the State game agency would just import some whitetail deer that could overpopulate the area like rats, as they do in some areas, I may be happier if I could just shoot deer out the back by the chicken Gulag.

Low crime rate all homeowners have guns and know how to use them.Up to 2 years ago you could buy a 1970 ranch style 2000sf home on 2 acres with a pond for 100k.Still get permission to hunt on a few places for 2 gallons of fish filets and a half gallon of wiskey.[bleep] Biden sighs every 2 miles.Yes I live in rural Texas.

Excelente!

Family land, family business.

I HATE the politics and 3/4 of the people.

But, love the weather, love our area (very conservative)
love the Sierra Nevada mountains and the ocean.

It's home. For now at least.

I own part of family homestead, and its a pretty good hunting area.

Born here and moved all the way to Alaska then Mississippi then Florida then back here to ND. The best thing here is the population is under 700,000 total. Edk

I am here for the job. In a few years when I retire we will be moving . We have not decided where.

I can identify with that. Got here right after college, & might've roamed had I not started a family so fast. 32 years goes by quick.

Still, the cost o' living is about as cheap as one can find in any decent-sized metro area, I got a great group o' friends, & a great church, too. I'm 'mongst plenty of like-minded folks in the red suburbs.

And besides, the local airport will get me anywhere I need to go.

With gratitude, one can make a great home anywhere. Without gratitude, nowhere seems like home, 'cause the grass will always be greener elsewhere.

FC

Well, Jeremiah Damn Johnson!

Industry connections, wife likes it, the rest is history.

I had a mentor, former navy, who told me there was pretty much no where bad to live in America, but there are a lot of bad jobs.

He was right.

Its 3 minutes from my favorite gun shop

Because my house is paid for and I'm too lazy to move.

Because I'm to stupid to move to a cheaper area.

Congratulations, Jim! And a sincere wish the dirt and the critters provide your family a good living!

I live in the town I was born in here on the Iowa/Missouri border. We own the farm my grandpa moved onto 85 years ago. Dad bought the farm that borders it and my brother and I own it in partnership. I'll try to have it so my kids or grandkids can own it if they want after my turn is done.

There's lots of cows here. It was a good place to raise my kids.

I'm the sixth generation of my dad's family that has lived in this general area since the 1840's.

Grew up in various places in the east. Due to outdoor magazines and National Geographic I was obsessed with the rocky mountain west at the age of 8. Realized early the east was too crowded and too polluted, and just had to get out. Moving to Montana was not really a choice, it was a necessity.I simply could not live back east. Promised myself as a teenager I would be able to look out my window and see the rockies everyday. Finished my last college final in NC one day at noon, and was on the road to Montana at 1pm.Been here ever since.
You give up a lot for a move like that, family, friends, loves and high paying jobs lost...but I would shovel horse schitt for $2 per hour to live here.Never belonged anywhere else.

Great and enlightening post Ingwe. Thanks.

Great News, Jim. GOD bless you and yours.

Childhood in England, always a citizen here by birth. First set foot here in my early teens. Holy crap! Miles of woodlands, even in NY State. Huge country, a paradise.

College in Upstate NY, NY is a beautiful state. Left college to see “the West”, woulda gone to Oregon but it was February soI picked out Las Cruces NM instead. Never made it, the engine seized in the early morning hours 100 yards east of Apache Summit. Pushed that little ‘69 Opel Kadette station wagon around and rolled it nine miles downhill to a convenience store parking lot in Ruidoso Downs.

Had a set of tools, stared as soon as I could see, crankshaft wouldn’t turn even with a breaker bar, took off the head the cylinders had play. Damn, seized main bearings. Long haired Apache guy from up on the mountain comes over to take a look, we get to talking, says I can stay at his place if I need to.

I had long hair, NY plates, limited funds. First light go into store apologizing. “Heck don’t worry about it” the guys says, “go see Russ up on Main Street. Russ up on Main Street tows me to his garage, lets me use his lift, lets me use his tools, lets me sleep in my car at night. I clean up with a garden hose out back or walk an hour to a campground each evening to shower.

Russ takes the crankshaft to Alamogordo (where he lived) to get it machined. The main bearings were a problem, all the way from Germany, took three weeks.

I worked most days doing day labor out of the employment office (I forget what it was called) so at the end of the month I HAD money. The only funds Russ would accept was what he paid to get the crankshaft worked on.

One day during that month after a heavy snow I was walking a couple of miles to the upper town to get my mail General Delivery.

A guy sees me walking up the street offers me a ride. We get to talking he takes me home to meet his wife and kids and offers me a meal, they are practicing, believing Christians.

Same week my car was finished I drive to Las Cruces, I needed a mailing address to join the Peace Corps. Sublet a room from a college student, ended up working day labor there six months.

Generally worked alongside Mexican nationals on various laboring jobs, lotta Highway work. Tough, older barrel-chested guys in western wear and straw hats. They would often share their lunch when I didn’t bring any, homemade tortillas.

Throughout this period, I was absolutely blown away by New Mexico. The Land of Enchantment. Beautiful state, friendly people.

Three years in Africa, a year working at my alma mater Forestry School in Upstate New York, grad school in Texas.

Didn’t make it back to New Mexico for five years. Russ was nowhere to be found, looked up that nice couple and their kids, been going back to visit them often over the last 39 years.

… and now I live in Texas 🙂

My great grandfather Busch came through Galveston into Texas from Germany and settled here. He was a farmer. My father’s family I can’t trace back to when they got here but a reletive on dad’s side fought in the Alamo. Dad was in the Navy so I was born in key west Florida. We moved back to here which is Elk, Texas. My brother died 3 years ago and left me some land. I had a place in Tours, Texas. I sold my place in Tours and built a house on brother’s place in Elk last year. I’ve been living in my new house exactly 1 year and 3 days ago. I live about 15mins from grandpa Busch’s farm. 15 minutes from where I graduated high school in 92. Went to Texas State Technical College about 15mins from here. Wife’s family is all around this area too. I’ll die here, hopefully at home or hunting somewhere and not some hospital or rest home.