As I looked over who has signed on to this blog so far, it confirms what I already knew.... What Frank and Jane Pendley started on that homestead in Oak Creek all those years ago has spread out to posterity all over the place. I know of sibs or cousins in the following places:
Arizona, Idaho, California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Texas, Michigan, Germany and quite possibly some other spots I am missing.
I am in Athena, Oregon. It's a TINY little agricultural community in Eastern Oregon, just 25 miles or so from the Washington border. We are half way between Pendleton, OR and Walla Walla, WA.
I am always intrigued by why people live where ever they are. In our case, Larry and I opted to follow his job which is why over the past 25 years we've lived in six states! Others may pick a place they feel an affinity for and then find a way to make living there feasible. How about you? Why do you live where you live? What's it like there? If you could live anyplace in the world that you wanted, where would that be?
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I'm feeling pretty stuck in general these days. I have no idea what to try next, so I'm just going with inertia and remaining an object at rest. Austin, TX is a really easy town to get stuck in. We have most of the amenities of a big city without the crowding. We do have the traffic however. The cost of living is relatively low, compared to other cities of similar size. It is a liberal, mellow, laid-back town full of green space. The weather is pretty moderate for about half the year. Then it is really hot and humid for six months. In the end I'm OK with six months of hot in trade for only getting one or two freezes a year.
I wouldn't choose Austin if I had an infinite reserve of cash. It is a really easy place to grind your life out in a rut though. I'm not sure I'm going to ever do much more than that, so I may be here until my dying day.
Lee and I are total urbanites. We get itchy in the country. We like to stroll down a street and see a variety of people from many walks of life, six local cafes/restaurants, two small corner groceries, a freaky indie video rental outlet, and at least one comic store that carries all of the AIT/Planetlar and Oni titles.
Given an unlimited budget, we'd probably move to a different city every couple of years. A brief list of cities we'd love to try living in short-term:
Auckland, NZ
Wellington, NZ
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Seattle, WA, USA
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Boston, MA, USA
Chicago, IL, USA
San Diego, CA, USA
London, UK
Hey Eric;
I'd trade Portland for Seattle any day. Seattle DEFINES road rage whereas you can get around Portland fairly easily. Besides, Portland has Powell's book store which takes up an entire city block and is one of my favorite stores in the world. Although Seattle does have the Pike Street market where you can see the fish vendors throw salmon which is pretty cool, plus a store dedicated entirely to wind up toys.
As for moving every couple years....I've managed to do that actually (although I usually averaged 5 yrs to a town). On the one hand, I met many great people along the way and got to have some amazing experiences which never would have occurred had I stayed put in one place. Still, I feel like we sacrificed an awful lot in terms of sense of community and belonging. Whenever I talk to people who describe having had the same friends for 20 yrs or more I am a little bit wistful / envious. I do know some folks that I’ve kept in contact with over the years through the occasional holiday greetings and e-mail, but that’s not nearly the same as having someone participate in your life over the long haul.
We’ve been here 4 years now and I can feel myself getting itchy feet, like there must be a change coming soon. It’s mostly out of habit – not that I necessarily WANT to move any time soon, but on some level I expect to. Sorta like how ever August I feel a tremendous compulsion to go buy school supplies whether I need ‘em or not. There’s something about the smell of those big fat pink erasers…..
We're big fans of Portland too, but Seattle is just a little more our speed. We've almost moved to Portland several times. We've visited both cities repeatedly. On our last visit, Portland had become AS crowded as Seattle, comparing downtown-to-downtown, but with not quite as much going on. I can get anything I want from Powell's at the web site and I get a bit overwhelmed in the actual physical store, unable to make any choices from the seemingly infinite selection ;-) Also, I should have specified, our ultimate goal would be to only use mass transit everywhere, we HATE driving at all. Portland actually does have better mass transit, with the combination of the trollies, the light rail, AND a comprehensive bus system. However, we could get by without ever leaving downtown Seattle, whereas we couldn't make do with JUST downtown Portland. One of our biggest gripes about Austin is just HOW abysmal the bus system is here and we definitely have to drive lots here to meet all of our urban needs.
I don't think it is just the generic moving itch for me. As a kid we moved every few years and I got very used to that mode, but I've been here in Austin for going on 17 years, which is the longest I've lived anywhere. I've gotten out for six months here or six months there, but pretty much have been here since my junior year of high school. I have friends who still live here that I've known all 17 of those years. However, honestly, I contact them about as often as those who have moved on. We even primarily keep contact via email, just like my high school friends who are now in Tokyo or Chicago. I'm not much of a community person myself, Lee is about all the community I need. We are a couple of lone wolves who love to prowl cities, anonymous and voyeuristic.
All of those cities on the list at the end were pipe-dream, if-money-were-no-object choices though. We'll probably just die here in Austin no doubt. As far as a city we can actually live and work in comfortably with our limited skill sets and even more limited motivations, Austin is pretty much it. We've surveyed just about every major city in the US with an eye to moving there and the results have always been the same: Austin fits our lives just right. Given infinite resources though, we'd be urban nomads crawling through the gutters of the worlds cities.
So has the restless itch ever driven you to move in-and-of-itself? Or do the moves just occur with such regularity that the itch anticipates them?
Big pink erasers aren't just for August anymore, we have several and keep our stocks of office and art supplies overflowing.
I still say give the southern east coast a try. Anywhere from VA beach down. The climate is better...in my opinion, the ocean is actually swimmable in the summer, and unless you get to Atlanta, you don't have the heroin problem Portland does ;). Savannah, GA. I think that's my pick!
I spent junior high and early high school outside of Raleigh, NC. We've visited Miami and Ft. Lauderdale recently. I spent a week in Atlanta for work recently. We might be visiting Charlotte and doing a quick side trip to revisit old haunts near Ashville and Raleigh again soon. I'm not sure why the southeast has never appealed to me. For some reason the cities down there don't have the same frenetic energy that the northeast or west coast cities have. Even Chicago has that same vibe that we love. Maybe it's the heroin? ;-p
We keep hearing great things about Savannah, but we fear it may be a little small for our taste. Even Austin seems a little podunk to us some days. We have to go check it out though, Lee has always had half an eye on SCAD too...
Interesting posts so far. I used to think that I wanted to run away where the grass was greener (on the other side) until I actually left. It took a little while, and a lot of travels, before one day I topped the Mogollon rim looking over the Verde Valley and came to the realization that I had grown up in one of the most beautiful, climate friendly places in the United States. Seriously. I have been so many wonderful places, but there is no place like home, and the Verde Valley is mine. I hit me like a ton of bricks. I felt stupid that I have quit really 'seeing it' in my youth.
So without reservations I can say that I live where I want to live. Oh sure, I would rather have Sycamore Canyon as my private retreat and have supplies airdropped to me so I could shun society completely. Everyone needs a fantasy or two. Per the rules, I can't post the others. But I have a beautiful home on the Verde River in a stupendously stunning valley, a great job, and I am not going anywhere except on vacation. Which by the way, usually involves a lot of dehydrated food in a backpack.
In the last 5 years, we have hiked the trails from one end of the Grand Canyon to the other on the South side, and some off the North Rim too. We have hiked to the summit of 14,000 ft peaks in Colorado. This year, vacation will cover the southern 100 miles of the John Muir trail ending with a summit of Mt Whitney. We do some urban trips too, but our heart is in the wilderness. If I moved to the wilderness, I would not be the only one and it would no longer be wilderness. Far too many of our wild places are being raped and pilaged as it is. Most of us can remember Sedona before there were homes on most of the rocks, some us remember when there was no West Sedona, and who among us can say the current state is an improvement? So I am very content to visit my favorite places, and live in Cottonwood Arizona.
Given that we spend so much time on trails, last year we became volunteers for trail crews on the Continental Divide Trail in an effort to give back to something that gives us so much. We did repair on a section in New Mexico last year, plan do cut new trail on the Colorado border this year, and are in the process of becoming stewards for a section of the Arizona Trail too.
Places worth mention in my travels I haven't mentioned yet:
Russian River Valley, California
Santa Maria, Baja (great beach camping)
Ouray, Colorado
Hey Pam;
One of my favorite photographs of myself is one you took years ago. I lie collapsed on the ground in exhaustion in all my tie-dye splendor having just hiked out of sycamore with you. Of course, you barely broke a sweat. Girlfriend, I never could keep up with you, but I'll ALWAYS appreciate the chance to try. Every time I eat gorp I remember our day hike in Boise. Happy trails, spirit sister!
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