I am making a trip to town tomorrow. 42 miles, one way. This got me wondering…how far does anyone else have to drive to reach basic services?
I live 5 miles outside a very small town that has a tiny grocery store for basics, but for almost anything else we have to drive. Of course, there are all kinds of services within 15 miles, but that involves an international border and is way too much trouble for regular shopping. We do cross to Canada occasionally for dinner out, Dairy Queen soft serve and skiing.
There’s a (very) small market 2/3 mile away from me. Gas station/mini-mart, two miles. Nearest grocery store, Jack-In-The-Box (ick), about four miles. About one mile away is a restaurant at a golf course (or former golf corse – I don’t golf, so I don’t know if it’s still open), a Mexican restaurant, and a diner/restaurant. There’s a town four or five miles away, but there’s not much there. If I want to go ‘into town’ it’s 20 to 25 miles.
Northport, WA…across the border from Trail/Rossland B.C. We do have one gas station, two bars (one of which serves bar food) and a micro brewery in town (5 miles from me), but only one ATM and no fast food at all.
I keep hearing people complain about Pt. Roberts. If they want a pizza they have to go into Canada, or else meet the delivery guy at the border crossing.
I’ve got the best of both worlds. I’m near the end of a dead-end road so on three sides, I’ve got a whole lot of nothing. On the fourth side, services aren’t terribly far away.
nearest convenience store with (expensive) gas - 3 miles
nearest supermarket (rather expensive) and nearest public library (small) - 5 miles
nearest discount store (WalMart/KMart type) and nearest reasonably priced gas station - 10 miles
nearest small bookstore and nearest grocery store with decent prices - 13 miles
nearest research library, nearest big-box book retailer and nearest airport with scheduled service - 30 to 35 miles
If you think that’s bad, there’s one guy who lives in Estcourt Station, Maine on the border with Quebec. His house is in Maine and the end of his driveway is in Canada. After 9/11, the formerly lenient rules were abolished and he was required to check in with the border agents every time he went anywhere. The nearest crossing station is only open 40 hours a week, so the rest of the time, he was basically a prisoner in his own home.
I’m in Japan so the distances are much smaller than the US, but I feel I have a nice balance. We live about 200 yards from the edge of town. In that direction there is nothing but onion fields, trees and farmsteads for miles. (Maybe 60 or so.) In the opposite direction, I can walk to a reasonably big supermarket, post office, library, banks etc. I’m going to hate it if they build up out past the town line that there is now. So far though, in about 25 years since this bit of housing was developed, the road behind ours has been the border and it doesn’t seem that thing will change. Let’s hope not…
We’ve got a village general store with gas, fantastic homemade sandwiches, and basic groceries across the river. It’s expensive enough that we only go there in “oh, crap we’re out of sugar and I’ve already beaten the eggs” types of emergencies. There’s also a tiny library next door to it, and our tiny post office just down the road, where I’ve never had to give my address, because they recognize me.
The nearest civilization is about eight miles away, but the nearest real, decent shopping area is more like fifteen.
I was listening to a radio program about people living in the highlands of Scotland being miles from any services, and one important issue came up: if you urgently need medical services, you’re just not going to get them very quickly. Is that a concern to anyone living in the middle of nowhere?
(I live in the middle of a town, so this doesn’t apply to me.)
I don’t live in a truly rural area anymore but I grew up in one. We only had one doctor and town and he didn’t usually take very serious emergency calls. We had a volunteer fire department and ambulance that responded to things like car wrecks but the crews would have to get the call and then rush from home as fast as possible to get the equipment which might take ten minutes or more and then go to the scene. The nearest hospital was about 40 minutes away so things could take a while. In the event of a life-threatening accident, they would often call the Medevac helicopters with a trauma crew on board to speed up treatment.
There is an itty grocery store 5 miles away. That town does have a bar that serves decent food.
Gas is 12 miles away, as is the transfer station where we take our trash. No pick up. No mail delivery either. The PO is 15 miles away in the other direction.
Fast food is 25 miles away. A movie is about 30 miles. Pizza delivery is right out. Doesn’t happen. Well, it’s possible from a little town 12 miles away, but it’s pretty silly to do. What with just trying to give directions so they can find our house…. And the tip I feel I should give. I am able to get UPS or FedX here in the summer. I would never try it in the winter. It wouldn’t be fair.
My Wife and I drive over the continental divide every day. It’s very rare to come home after work and then drive anywhere. Denver is the closest big city at 100 miles.
I am sometimes concerned with medical care. I try to not do anything dangerous (like go up on the roof, run the tractor etc.) unless my Wife is also home.
library - 2 miles
fire station, police department, & post office - 4 miles
gas station - 5 miles (stations to the east, west, and north are all 5 miles off)
hardware and small overpriced general stores - 5 miles
urgent care center & vet’s office - 5 miles (shared parking lot, not doctors)
elementary & middle schools - 5 miles (high schoolers go out-of-town)
grocery stores - 9 miles
department stores - 9 miles
fast food - 9 miles
hospital - 15 miles (north and west)
In Alaska I had to fly 498 miles to the dentist. There was emergency medicine locally but no non-emergency medicine for non-natives within the 498 miles.
There are quite a few places in Nevada where it is a two hour round trip to a supermarket. I drove 55 miles to WalMart for most needs for a few years.
One places north of Winnemucka, Nevada had a sign that said 172 miles to the next service. At that time ‘the next service’ meant anything, not even a beer or a slot machine. There were ranches visible from that road so some could have been driving, or flying, 172 miles to buy anything.
I expect that that north of Clark County and East of Nye county Nevada you could find some places that are pretty far out too.
I’m about 6 miles to the nearest gas station/convenience store. 10 miles to Wal-mart, which has gas and groceries. 15 miles to the library. You learn to make your grocery stops on the way home from work, since once you’re home you aren’t going to “run to the store” for a gallon of milk.
Yes, Kettle Falls. But Colville (about the same distance) has most of the “big” stuff (i.e. Safeway, Walmart, Hospital, multiple banks, etc.)
For any large retailers other than Walmart (Home Depot, Costco, etc.), we go to Spokane which is about 120 miles.
We have a tiny town with a convenience store and 2 bars about 5 miles away, a slightly larger town with a small grocery store and a library about 10 miles away, and the nearest sizable town with a large grocery store and home improvement store is 20 miles (about 20 minutes in summer and 40 in winter).
Health care is a bit of a concern in that the ambulance service is a volunteer operation located in town #2 above, and an emergency call requires them to gather up their staff, drive 10 miles to our house, then drive back through town #2 and on to the hospital in a completely different town about 20 miles beyond that. The one time we needed them, they had to call an ambulance from the hospital to meet them in the middle for a transfer.