Just read a book by Jon Katz, Dog Days. Apparently he lives on a farm in Hebron NY, essentially across the border from VT. Makes it sound like a slice of heaven (as do the photos on his site.
Aren’t you moving to New England??? Or were you just scouting places?
Man, that fell through so hard I’m surprised you didn’t here the bang out there on the coast. 
I think I posted about it somewhere here. Essentially the possible job involved exactly the rather specialized stuff I’d been doing quite well for more than 2 decades - and my application was rated a ZERO and I was not even allowed to interview or test to complete the application process.
Yay for me! Time to play more golf!
I’ve filed an appeal and such, but the process was so fucked up it really makes me question whether I want the gig.
So no large moves imminent until retirement time in 10 years or so, unless I feel like checking out my job’s Boston shop. I’ve been giving some serious thought to this place in a coupla years after my youngest graduates from HS. Small town of maybe 5-600 homes surrounded by the Indiana Dunes Nat’l Park. For about 1/2 the price of my cuurrent house, I could buy a house where I could walk to the lake and the train, with only a slightly longer train ride to my job than present. Spend my evenings and weekends swimming and kayaking on the lake, and hiking in the dunes.
We now return you to your previously scheduled thread.
Gotcha - sorry about the gig falling through. Seems like you got your head on straight with future plans though. And we’ll always be here for when you want to visit!
Yeah, somewhere between the Hudson and the VT border, NY suddenly becomes New England.
Oh how I dig the whole Vermont scene. Mrs. Jockey and I traversed New England from Boston to VT to NH to CT to ME and back to Boston a handful of years ago, and I fell in love with the place. We drove Rte 100 right through the middle of the state and I’ll tell ya, that’s some gorgeous country, from Smugglers Notch to the Mad River Valley there’s an aesthetic in that state that I’ve never seen anywhere else. You can go from a high-falutin boutique filled with expensive knick-knacks to a roadside greasy spoon that was a victorian home in a former life.
I think I liked Woodstock the best though, absolutely charming and the quintessential New England Town. White River Junction and Queechee (sp?) gorge provided some of the most dramatic landscapes I’ve seen that side of the Mississippi.
All that said though, I DID feel like outsiders weren’t really welcomed to stay. I got the “thanks for coming to look at the foliage, leave your money by the door on your way out” vibe from more than a few people.
Still, awesome country.
hijack
Dinsdale Ogden’s a hideaway to be sure, but I’d look at buying sooner than later if you’re able. They’re revamping a lot of the area around there (with some state and federal money I’m told), and the prices are gonna spike midway between now and two years, and stay there for a while, so says a real estate agent I know (he’s about 50/50 on his predictions, fyi). /hijack
Carry on.
And if you don’t mind the cold, you can get nekkid in public in Brattleboro
http://www.boston.com/news/local/vermont/articles/2006/08/23/law_of_nature_prevails_in_vermont/
Well how about that??? Though if I was that teenage girls Dad I’d probably be pissed.
Certainly the divide between native and flatlander is one of the key discrimination areas. But I can’t write off racial prejudice either. I knew one guy who lived in the same farm in Canaan he was born in for 80+ years except for a stint in the Navy decades ago. I doubt he saw many non-white people ever, but that didn’t stop him from describing some woman in town as “shacked up with a nigger”. Yeah, it’s one guy, but he’s relatively isolated among almost all whites.
and if you head west towards the Adirondacks, in the valleys and foothills, you will find some very interesting northern appalachian culture; rednecks of the northeast. There are remnants of the old lumber towns, and culture that still linger. My father used to play some of the old logging tunes he learned from an old northern fiddler named Larry Older.
I’m heading back to visit some family and friends in upstate NY near Schenectady the first weekend in October; hope the trees are ablaze with color and the weather good. I love upstate NY in the Fall.