Riddle me this: why are people buying land in the boonies to move out to one day?

[mj_]

@Scepticalscribe I will definitely pay more attention in the future as it has never occured to me that it is mostly males but you are absolutely right. Females seem to be in the minority in this regard, and while I am neither a sociologist or an anthropologist reading yours and @KaliYoni's theories and explanations for this phenomenon makes perfect sense to me. I was aware of the fact that rural areas tend to be more conservative then urban environments, which is a phenomenon not limited to the United States, but I never made that connection. I also find it fascinating that your mother used the word "escape" to describe her feelings while on the flip side pretty much everybody I talk to uses this very word to explain future plans, as in they plan to escape the hustle and bustle of the city.

@Madhatter32 @icanhazmac Thank you for your elaborations, which seem to confirm a suspicion I have had regarding the "misanthropy" part of my theory. In the end it does boil down to quantity: the fewer people are around the less likely you are to witness or be exposed to annoying behavior by others. Have you found this to be an age thing, and do you mind me asking how old you are? I have just turned 41 recently and I have to admit that I have started noticing a slight annoyance every now and then when encountering certain inconsiderate behaviors, some of which are included on @icanhazmac's heavily smartphone-biased list (that, despite its bias, I absolutely get the point of) that would not have bothered me the least 20 or so years ago (most likely because back then I was on the other side of the annoyance game).

 

[icanhazmac]

In the end it does boil down to quantity: the fewer people are around the less likely you they to witness or be exposed to annoying behavior by others.

Pure quantity is a fair point but I feel it is deeper than that. When you live in a small community your day to day interactions will no doubt contribute to your standing in that community, ex: if you are constantly inconsiderate in a small town you will be treated as such and pay a price socially. Conversely if you live in a large city, take New York, LA, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, etc. and you act like a jerk 24/7 your community doesn't recognize you as easily amongst the sea of humanity, there are just too many people to track. It is no surprise that "small town America" in the mid-west has a much different community feel than do the big cities. (apologies for being US centric in my response but I can only speak to my experience)

The rudest cities in America, ranked according to a new Insider survey

The rudest city in America is New York City, according to a new Insider survey of 2,092 US adults.

www.businessinsider.com

These are the rudest states in America, according to people who live there | YouGov

In almost every Southern state, residents are likely to say the people who live there are more polite than most Americans.

today.yougov.com

In the above, look at population vs "politeness".

 

[eyoungren]

People seem to have a declining respect for others that I believe comes from, and is driven by, population density, smartphones and social media.

Some of the little things I've noticed over the last 10-15 years:

• Worst of all... parents total disregard for their children's behavior in public, especially restaurants. Nothing sets me on edge more than trying to enjoy a good meal (not talking fast food) and the next table over contains 2 parents completely ignoring their 3 screaming kids or their 3 kids with 3 iPads at max volume all doing different things! God forbid you say anything or give them a look because then they climb up on their soapbox and start yelling at you that "children are children, what do you want me to do?". How about teaching your children some basic manners and discipline. Soccer mom's on a lunch "play date" are insufferable, all they want to do is gossip over a glass of wine while their respective children run all over the restaurant "playing".

I could speak in agreement to every item on your list, but that'd be a really long post and the list itself is worthy of it's own threads point by point. So, I'm choosing to respond to this one simply because of my own parents.

If it isn't clear by the end, I do agree with the point of yours that I am quoting.

My parents are from the Silent Generation (I'm Gen-X). We (my sister and I) were taught that children are to be seen and not heard and that at restaurants in general (or fancy restaurants in particular) we were to be on our best behavior. My wife and I passed that on to our own kids (now 18 and 13). Tantrums, outburst, talking back, etc were not tolerated. Fortunately, it only took a few times for that to sink in.

We do use our cellphones at the table when out, but my kids don't pull their phones out until they see us doing it. Phones and devices are not substitutes for conversation and are generally put away when actually eating. My children were taught to order for themselves (I made them order when I started dragging them around) and looking at your phone when the server is trying to take your order is not acceptable (unless you're reading the order from your phone). Our kids are expected to know when to put the phone/device away and they adhere to that.

There was ONE time when we were out with my parents that I gave my son (about 12 or so) my iPhone to play games. I did that because whatever he had eaten disagreed with him and he looked sick. I knew focusing on the games would distract him. When he felt better, I took the phone away and he rejoined the conversation.

A lot of people's problems I think is two-fold. One, they want to think of their kids as their friend. They aren't. They are your children, you're supposed to be their parent, not their friend. Two, people are lazy and do not want to spend the effort or energy to correct problems. Or they just don't care. I am excluding those parents whose children may have health or mental issues.

Fortunately, this isn't anything we've had to deal with a lot and it in no way has us reconsidering our choice to live in the city.

 

[TechRunner]

Worst of all... parents total disregard for their children's behavior in public, especially restaurants. Nothing sets me on edge more than trying to enjoy a good meal (not talking fast food) and the next table over contains 2 parents completely ignoring their 3 screaming kids or their 3 kids with 3 iPads at max volume all doing different things! God forbid you say anything or give them a look because then they climb up on their soapbox and start yelling at you that "children are children, what do you want me to do?". How about teaching your children some basic manners and discipline. Soccer mom's on a lunch "play date" are insufferable, all they want to do is gossip over a glass of wine while their respective children run all over the restaurant "playing".

This is my wife's number one pet peeve when out in public. Our daughter was never allowed to behave that way. So many have forgotten that "parent" is also a verb.

 

[eyoungren]

This is my wife's number one pet peeve when out in public. Our daughter was never allowed to behave that way. So many have forgotten that "parent" is also a verb.

My son decided to try a tantrum once in the parking lot when we were walking in to Walmart. He was about six or so and we had just told him 'no' to getting something. He decided to throw himself right down on the asphalt and thrash around like he'd seen other kids do.

Well…we live in Phoenix, and this was August, the hottest month. It was probably around 115º that day and he was in shorts, sandals and a cotton shirt. He got up almost as fast as he threw himself down.

And that was the first and LAST tantrum we ever got from him.

 

[TechRunner]

My son decided to try a tantrum once in the parking lot when we were walking in to Walmart. He was about six or so and we had just told him 'no' to getting something. He decided to throw himself right down on the asphalt and thrash around like he'd seen other kids do.

Well…we live in Phoenix, and this was August, the hottest month. It was probably around 115º that day and he was in shorts, sandals and a cotton shirt. He got up almost as fast as he threw himself down.

And that was the first and LAST tantrum we ever got from him.

I'll bet! Did he realize that sizzling sound was him?

 

[eyoungren]

I'll bet! Did he realize that sizzling sound was him?

LOL, he figured it out real fast.

 

[SuperCachetes]

@Madhatter32 @icanhazmac Thank you for your elaborations, which seem to confirm a suspicion I have had regarding the "misanthropy" part of my theory. In the end it does boil down to quantity: the fewer people are around the less likely you are to witness or be exposed to annoying behavior by others. Have you found this to be an age thing, and do you mind me asking how old you are? I have just turned 41 recently and I have to admit that I have started noticing a slight annoyance every now and then when encountering certain inconsiderate behaviors, some of which are included on @icanhazmac's heavily smartphone-biased list (that, despite its bias, I absolutely get the point of) that would not have bothered me the least 20 or so years ago (most likely because back then I was on the other side of the annoyance game).

I am 51 and beginning to start laying out plans for retirement. My dream of "getting away from it all" is really more just "getting away from y'all."

I have always been very particular, very opinionated, very rigid in my thinking... and I get annoyed when things are beyond my control. To be sure, these are "me" problems that I don't lay at the feet of anyone else. They make me come across as an ******* sometimes, but I am at some level an optimist amazed by what the human race can accomplish, and I legitimately try to be a good person at most opportunities. I just don't want to be inundated by the society itself. Probably if I was going to psychoanalyze myself, I would say I am running away from the world rather than expending too much effort trying to fit into it socially. If I were to stay in the USA, in my mind, just about every city with a major airport is "a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there."

So, my ideal retirement location is not necessarily Antarctica, or a huge plot of land - and I really don't want to grow and hunt my own food. But if I don't have to commute every day (or ever, for post-pandemic work) why would I want to just sit in the suburbs with a bunch of people still doing the grind, raising their kids, being cordial "neighbors" but not confidants? My own ideal is somewhere in the middle - not urban or suburban - but not undeveloped land far removed from civilization. (For the record, in the state I live in, a 30-minute drive is basically negligible. When I worked at Walmart 30 years ago, there were people driving up with giant ice chests to buy groceries because they lived 3x that drive from the nearest store with reasonable prices... Hooray for America, lol)

The good news is I can already tell that this whole "retirement site selection process" and figuring out what the next (hopefully relaxing and rewarding) decades of one's life will entail is extremely fun and exciting. Now if the market would just stabilize so we can figure out if we're retiring in 3-4 years, or 20...

 

[bocian]

In my experience, most of the people who want to retire to the country grew up in the country or have some connection to the area. Most Americans, after all, are only one or two generations removed from rural life, and may have nostalgic ideas of wide open spaces and self-sufficiency. There's definitely a grass-is-always-greener aspect to age-related migration, regardless of where you come from or where you land.

I live in Lincoln, which I realize some people may consider the boonies despite it being the state capitol, a Big 10 college town and the second largest city in Nebraska. Here we see the opposite trend. A lot of farmers (including my neighbors across the street) sell their land to their kids then move to "the big city" (meaning Lincoln). They have no interest in dealing with the traffic of a place like Omaha or Kansas City, but they do want to live somewhere that has hospitals, nursing homes and doctors who specialize ... not to mention delivery services. Being comfortable and feeling independent in your old age requires a certain level of infrastructure that doesn't exist in many rural areas.

And remember, not all rural areas are equivalent. I have extended family who own a house "in the country" in Maryland. Sure, they have enough land to keep a few goats and chickens, but they can see their neighbors on either side from their porch. The level of population density and, therefore, services available, are on a whole different level than here on the Great Plains.

I have an aunt and an uncle who spent most of their professional lives in the Phoenix metro area, but moved to rural Kansas after retirement. They both grew up on farms, and the land they live on now used to belong to my uncle's family. Their local church is comprised almost entirely of extended family. Every church potluck is basically a family reunion. They have gardens and barn cats, bird feeders and a pond. They have to drive a long ways to get to a grocery store, but it's a stress-free drive with no traffic.

They've never been the sort to go out to eat often or to go to plays or take advantages of the other amenities a city offers. Meanwhile, their house in Prescott, Arizona, where my cousin now lives, has been burgled twice since they left. The only thing they truly miss about their former life is that they can't grow their own citrus in Kansas. It's been great for the first decade of their retirement, but now they are starting to wish they had a hospital close by. Their nearest hospital, a forty minute drive, closed after they moved there, meaning it's now more than an hour to get to a hospital.

My brother and sister-in-law still have a couple decades before retirement, but have already bought their country home. They live in Chicago (and I mean, truly in Chicago. They can see Maggie Daley Park from their 46th floor windows). They love the city, or did before COVID. They were the types to eat out every night. To walk to the theaters or comedy shows. To go to every gallery opening. But with COVID, everything they love about the city has become restricted and much more difficult. Even work, what brought them to Chicago in the first place, no longer holds them there. My brother changed jobs in March 2020, and despite living only three blocks from his company's headquarters, he has never physically been in the office.

This fall, they bought a house and five acres of land along Lake Superior in northern Minnesota. The land once belonged to my sister-in-law's grandparents and is within the historic territory of her tribe, so it has emotional resonance for her. There are maybe five restaurants in town, some of which close for the winter, and no art scene. But they have family nearby, inspiring scenery, and a decent Internet connection. They still spend a lot of time in Chicago, but if you're going to fix your own food anyway, you might as well do it in a big, farmhouse-style kitchen instead of an apartment's little galley kitchen. And if you're both going to work from home, you might as well do it from a house with room to spread out. And now when they want to go for a walk, they don't have to worry about masks or bumping into strangers. Their close encounters are with ruffed grouse, pileated woodpeckers and white-tailed deer. They're big believers in returning land to indigenous communities, so they will be giving the property to the tribe as off-reservation land trust when they die or can no longer live independently.

I think everyone wants what they don't have, and there's a romance to country living handed down to us in our grandparents' stories. But there are also very real and very serious reasons to keep your hobby farm, vacation home, country retreat or whatever you want to call it close enough to a town or city that you can get medical treatment as you age.

 

[ian87w]

This is something I've experienced ever since moving to the US a little over six years ago, and I feel it's happening more and more frequently.

I'm at a party or other social event, making small talk with friends of friends and almost every time I am at one of these social gatherings someone proudly exclaims that they have just purchased a tract of land, somewhere between 5-15 acres, somewhere out in the boonies in the middle of nowhere at least an hour or two away from the city. They plan to build a house there and move out once they're retired, they're old, the kids are in college, etc. pp. It's always the exact same spiel. Mind you, this is not coming from people trying to escape an inner-city apartment in overpopulated urban areas such as San Francisco, Chicago, or New York but people already living in what can only be described as suburbian mansions 20-30 minutes away from the city.

Whenever I ask people why the response is always along the lines of "I don't want to grow old in the city" or "I want to escape city life" or "I want more land". As someone who has lived either directly in or in the suburbs of big cities my entire life (the smallest city I have lived in was Detroit, with a population of around 640,000) this is something I find impossible to understand. Why would I want to escape the benefits of cities, especially if I already live out in the comfort of suburbia? Why would I want 10 acres of land? Why would I want to drive 20 minutes or more to the next grocery store, 30 minutes or more to the next hardware store, or an hour or more to the next medical facility (especially if I am going to need the latter much more frequently as I grow older)?

What am I missing? Is this a cultural thing deeply engrained in the American mindset that oen must own land and that I as a foreigner that wasn't raised in this country simply cannot understand? Have I not been exposed to my fellow citizens long enough to develop the deep misanthropic hatred that would drive me out to the middle of nowhere? I honestly am completely flabbergasted and lost as to why this seems to be the norm rather than the exception around here.

Has someone here done this recently and if so, can you help me understand?

I don't understand it either. I mean in reality, once I get old/retire, I want to be in a city so if anything happens, emergency service and access to healthcare will be nearby/quick. And I would still want to have a social life and meet with friends/families in a convenient place, not forcing people to drive hours to the "boonies." Yup, I don't get it either.

I have a feeling it's a cultural thing (eg. the American stereotype of retiring in a farm somewhere).

In my country, it's more about retiring in your hometown, and that can be in the "boonies" or the city, depending on where you were born and grew up. I can somewhat understand it from the nostalgia/emotional perspective, although for me personally, the priority should still be easy access to healthcare.

In fact, I'd rather retire in a retirement home where there's still a sense of community, and at least have someone available if something happened to me. I might change my mind once I'm that old, but I'm seeing many elderlies in my country ending up being lonely and bitter as they chose to live in their old hometown, far from their own children/family members/friends/community. They became angry elders, cursing at their own kids not willing to live with them (not thinking that their kids have their own work and family to take care of). Imo it's a problem of loneliness. More ironically, some of these elderlies have a lot of money, and they built a huge multi-storey mansion where it's largely empty and they cannot even go up the stairs themselves. It's just funny seeing the ego of humans outliving their own common sense.

 

[bradl]

I'm going to come at this from a different perspective, and that is actually thanks to actor Don Cheadle.

Cheadle was featured on the show Finding Your Roots, where Dr. Henry Louis Gates helps people to discover their ancestry and genealogy. In Cheadle's case, he found out that he was descended from the Freedmen of the Chickasaw Indian nation of Oklahoma. The Chickasaw were one of the so-called "Five Civilized Tribes": Tribes that adoped Anglican names and customs, including slavery. They also participated in the US Civil War. After that war ended, in 1866, all of the tribes signed Treaties with the USA, in which the provisions for them were to free their slaves and make them citizens of their respective nations. The Chickasaw freed their slaves, but did not make them citizens. So those people were stateless: not part of their tribe, but not part of the United States of America for a period of 40 years. It wasn't until the Dawes Act passed that allowed them to stand up and be counted.

Cheadle's ancestors applied and were listed as Chickasaw Freedmen, in which land was allotted to them: 40 acres. In Cheadle's own words, having those 40 acres meant economic freedom, especially if you can use it to sustain yourself without the help or need to rely on anyone or anything else. And that is what his ancestors did, to the point where those around them started their own town.

Now why did I bring this up? Simple: moving from the city to the country can gain you a lower cost of living, and if the land is worked right, net you better economic freedom than you could have living in a heavily populated (read: over a million people) city. Like mentioned above where someone posted about how they were self sustaining during a storm where others were powerless, if that 55 acres of land cost, say, $120,000, a 3-bedroom house in California - regardless of northern or southern - costs almost 1.5 times that much, and not even on an acre of land. That person sustaining himself with those 55 acres is paying less to do a hell of a lot more than that person paying $300,000 for a house that is dependent on the city and everything in the city to sustain them. They will have more economic freedom to do what they need versus those in more densely populated urban areas who will be hamstrung by the city.

BL.

 

[eyoungren]

Most Americans, after all, are only one or two generations removed from rural life, and may have nostalgic ideas of wide open spaces and self-sufficiency.

Perhaps this is my problem. I am either sixth or seventh generation (always get that mixed up) Swedish-American. My father grew up in Sioux Falls, my grandfather worked all his life as a pressman for major newspapers and retired to San Diego. My dad's uncle worked for a railroad.

Must have just been my dad that wanted rural living I guess. I have zero romanticism for it.

 

[bradl]

I live in Lincoln, which I realize some people may consider the boonies despite it being the state capitol, a Big 10 college town and the second largest city in Nebraska. Here we see the opposite trend. A lot of farmers (including my neighbors across the street) sell their land to their kids then move to "the big city" (meaning Lincoln). They have no interest in dealing with the traffic of a place like Omaha or Kansas City, but they do want to live somewhere that has hospitals, nursing homes and doctors who specialize ... not to mention delivery services. Being comfortable and feeling independent in your old age requires a certain level of infrastructure that doesn't exist in many rural areas.

Forgive me, but I find this hilarious. I was born/raised in Omaha, and actually will be there next week. Despite how it looks like it's grown, Omaha is still very small. In my days in high school there (early 1990s), the population barely hit 450,000. Today, it is only at 485,000 people. So for 30 years, growth has been very stagnant, despite the number of homes that have popped up on the west side of town, plus all but annexing a couple of smaller towns.

That's important, because in being from there, I have always subscribed to the rule that wherever I live, "If I can not get from one end of town to the other within 20-25 minutes, the town is too big." You can definitely do that in Lincoln, let alone Omaha. I can barely do that from Overland Park, Kansas, to the airport in Kansas City. When I moved to Las Vegas, they had 750,000 people there. When I left 5 years later, they were barely under 2 million; Now they're at 5 million, and strangely enough, I can still get from NW Las Vegas to Henderson (on the southeast side) in 25 minutes.

Now, contrast that with Los Angeles. All traffic aside, it is 65 miles from Santa Monica to Ontario, just to get to the freeway that goes up to Las Vegas. That's driving for an entire hour and still being in the city. For me, that's too big.

Somewhere like the midwest works out because you're in wide enough spaces to feel like you're not being piled on and crowded next to you, but still in an urban enough environment that you aren't isolated.

Perhaps this is my problem. I am either sixth or seventh generation (always get that mixed up) Swedish-American. My father grew up in Sioux Falls, my grandfather worked all his life as a pressman for major newspapers and retired to San Diego. My dad's uncle worked for a railroad.

Must have just been my dad that wanted rural living I guess. I have zero romanticism for it.

Think about it this way.. Two generations ago would have put that line of family (this being your grandparents) firmly in the Industrial age. Factories popped up everywhere, and mass production was the talk of the town. One more generation back (your great-grandparents), and at that generation's age when they were children, would have been firmly in the Agrarian age, where agriculture and land was king.

It's from that time that the romanticism came up for being out in rural areas, then became glamorized by Hollywood with the old country-western movies. That fed that romanticism down to our grandparents and parents, which is why that age of TV is popular in daytime TV right now. On almost every free-to-air channel in the US during the day you'll be sure to find some western show made in the 1950s/1960s where they are dealing with and talking about land and wanting to be out in those rural areas.

BL.

 

[eyoungren]

Think about it this way.. Two generations ago would have put that line of family (this being your grandparents) firmly in the Industrial age. Factories popped up everywhere, and mass production was the talk of the town. One more generation back (your great-grandparents), and at that generation's age when they were children, would have been firmly in the Agrarian age, where agriculture and land was king.

It's from that time that the romanticism came up for being out in rural areas, then became glamorized by Hollywood with the old country-western movies. That fed that romanticism down to our grandparents and parents, which is why that age of TV is popular in daytime TV right now. On almost every free-to-air channel in the US during the day you'll be sure to find some western show made in the 1950s/1960s where they are dealing with and talking about land and wanting to be out in those rural areas.

BL.

That is an explanation (and a good one). However, it seems to have passed me by. I couldn't get out of rural fast enough and I have no intent of ever emulating my father by going back.

 

[turbineseaplane]

We have family in rural Oregon and every time we visit -- I can't wait to leave

It's beautiful and has 2 chain grocery stores, about 8 chain fast food places and 3 local restaurants.
There's a "clinic" but no major health facilities closer than about an hour on the highway.

Everyone knows everyone -- and is also a busy body and up in everyones personal business (gossip)

I would go totally insane living there

(the extremely overt Christian vibe in town doesn't help)

 

[ApfelKuchen]

This is something I've experienced ever since moving to the US a little over six years ago, and I feel it's happening more and more frequently.

I'm at a party or other social event, making small talk with friends of friends and almost every time I am at one of these social gatherings someone proudly exclaims that they have just purchased a tract of land, somewhere between 5-15 acres, somewhere out in the boonies in the middle of nowhere at least an hour or two away from the city. They plan to build a house there and move out once they're retired, they're old, the kids are in college, etc. pp. It's always the exact same spiel. Mind you, this is not coming from people trying to escape an inner-city apartment in overpopulated urban areas such as San Francisco, Chicago, or New York but people already living in what can only be described as suburbian mansions 20-30 minutes away from the city.

Whenever I ask people why the response is always along the lines of "I don't want to grow old in the city" or "I want to escape city life" or "I want more land". As someone who has lived either directly in or in the suburbs of big cities my entire life (the smallest city I have lived in was Detroit, with a population of around 640,000) this is something I find impossible to understand. Why would I want to escape the benefits of cities, especially if I already live out in the comfort of suburbia? Why would I want 10 acres of land? Why would I want to drive 20 minutes or more to the next grocery store, 30 minutes or more to the next hardware store, or an hour or more to the next medical facility (especially if I am going to need the latter much more frequently as I grow older)?

What am I missing? Is this a cultural thing deeply engrained in the American mindset that oen must own land and that I as a foreigner that wasn't raised in this country simply cannot understand? Have I not been exposed to my fellow citizens long enough to develop the deep misanthropic hatred that would drive me out to the middle of nowhere? I honestly am completely flabbergasted and lost as to why this seems to be the norm rather than the exception around here.

Has someone here done this recently and if so, can you help me understand?

You don't have to have been born outside the US to have these questions and make these observations. Yes, rural life can be very impractical. It's the romance of the life rather than the reality that people crave.

Overall, I think it's about luxury. The luxury of wide-open spaces; no unwanted noise from the neighbors, the sense of being the monarch of an expansive domain (relative to your current domain). The historic meaning of "real estate" - land as the only thing of real value.

5-15 acres of rural land seems both large and affordable relative to the cost of the relatively small suburban plots (or urban co-ops/condominiums) they currently own. If you traveled in different social circles, those who already own a sprawling (5-50+ acre) estate in, for example, upper Westchester County, New York (or on the outskirts of Bothell, Washington or in the hills overlooking the Silicon Valley), are buying rural land in the thousands of acres or more.

I learned long ago that, if one yearns to live on a large plot of woodlands or other open space, buy a home that borders on a public open space. You get much of the perceived "breathing space" at far lower expense. It's no coincidence that some of New York City's most coveted residential addresses overlook Central Park. Deep down, as a species, we're still accustomed to living in the outdoors. Civilization/urban life is a recent invention and not really our natural habitat.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

We have family in rural Oregon and every time we visit -- I can't wait to leave

It's beautiful and has 2 chain grocery stores, about 8 chain fast food places and 3 local restaurants.
There's a "clinic" but no major health facilities closer than about an hour on the highway.

Everyone knows everyone -- and is also a busy body and up in everyones personal business (gossip)

I would go totally insane living there

(the extremely overt Christian vibe in town doesn't help)

I know (and sympathise and empathise).

I, too, have rural relatives (I mentioned that my mother grew up in the country), and, anytime I visited, I could only ever envisage doing so as long as the time/date of my departure had been planned or arranged (and confirmed) in advance. Only when I knew I had an exit strategy - a sound and secured - exit strategy - in place, could I truly relax (and even briefly, fleetingly, enjoy) the time I passed in arcadian bliss.

For me, the rural world (and yes, sometimes stunning scenery) are best viewed through the windscreen of a car, or the window of a bus or train.

 

[profcutter]

We have family in rural Oregon and every time we visit -- I can't wait to leave

It's beautiful and has 2 chain grocery stores, about 8 chain fast food places and 3 local restaurants.
There's a "clinic" but no major health facilities closer than about an hour on the highway.

Everyone knows everyone -- and is also a busy body and up in everyones personal business (gossip)

I would go totally insane living there

(the extremely overt Christian vibe in town doesn't help)

Eastern oregon by any chance? I love the PNW, but Eastern Oregon really gives off this culty vibe. The Malheur refuge debacle didn’t help. I love medium sized towns in the PNW, particularly western Washington.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Eastern oregon by any chance? I love the PNW, but Eastern Oregon really gives off this culty vibe. The Malheur refuge debacle didn’t help. I love medium sized towns in the PNW, particularly western Washington.

yup

 

[profcutter]

We drove cross country this past summer. The best part of Eastern OR was seeing a Coyote just hanging out on the side of the highway. I lived in Oly and Seattle for years, and Bellingham too. Great towns. I’d love to move back.

yup

 

[turbineseaplane]

I lived in Oly and Seattle for years, and Bellingham too. Great towns. I’d love to move back.

Hope you're well off!

I have lots of family and friends over there still (including BLI) -- sounds like the cost of living just won't stop going up and up and up. Not sure about Olympia though

 

[profcutter]

Yeah Oly’s out of control too. I’ve got a realty site feed in my email, and every house is 75-100% more expensive than it was in 2018. Like 100k-150k more. In a couple years. Totally mad. We bought a teeny tiny place there last summer, hoping to move back this coming Year. The prices and cost of living are terrible, but the lifestyle and environment are soooooo much better than where we are now.

 

[bradl]

That is an explanation (and a good one). However, it seems to have passed me by. I couldn't get out of rural fast enough and I have no intent of ever emulating my father by going back.

Oh, don't get me wrong.. I'm the same way! I grew up around the tail end of the Industrial Age (mid/late 1970s) into the early 1980s, when the Information Age was just starting.. so I grew up in the city, while my parents are from a smaller than small town: a town where they still use incandescent lights for their traffic lights, hung over the middle of the intersection by posts on four corners, abandoned buildings and factories, and where the only thing to do on a Saturday night is to go hang out at Walmart, or drive 50 miles to the next closest town.... to go hang out at Walmart. That town was hanging on, primarily because the town was the Winter Quarters for Wringling Brothers' Circus. With that now gone, the town is getting much worse.

My father wanted to go back there so badly and live out his life there.. I couldn't. I'd take a mid-sized city anyday.

BL.

 

[eyoungren]

The best part of Eastern OR was seeing a Coyote just hanging out on the side of the highway.

I tend to consciously drift the car I am driving towards coyotes when I see them. Usually they slink off before anything happens. But they always get an invective from me. Coyotes killed more than enough of my pets.

I did hit a peacock in a neighbors tree once with a BB gun on one pump (just to make it move, not hurt it (too much)). Damn thing stopped coming around after that. They climb up on car hoods and roofs, **** all over your car and scratch the hell out of the paint doing it. Other than looking 'pretty' and being a nuisance I see no functional use for these animals. We got invaded by a whole damn flock of them.

Don't get me started on gophers in the front yard.

 

[profcutter]

Yeah, good thing we don’t live near each other. I’m partial to wildlife regardless of if they ate one of my pets. A coyote ate a cat of mine 15 years ago. Still love cats, still prefer wildlife.