Why I live where I live.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Helena, Montana

I grew up in Montana, southeastern Montana to be exact. I’ve thought about and had offers to leave Montana but I don’t want to live in Babylon.

Montana is a gorgeous state. Pick up a magazine of fly fishing or skiing and you will find an article about Montana. Any magazine that publishes an article about the best 10-25 places to play outside will include several towns in Montana.

I like to play outside. I live 6 blocks from the state capitol but can wal to the woods in five minutes. All of the land south of town (25,000 people) is public land and is covered with trails. On a recent day I met mountain bikers, skiers, runners and hikers, all within 10 minutes of my house.

I can be on most of Montana’s blue ribboon trout streams in 45 minutes to two hours. Glacier and Yellowstone national parks are less than three hours away. Within 200 miles I have seven different hot springs resorts and all of the major ski areas in Montana.

If I meet someone else from Montana we can always find someone that we both know.

I can walk downtown in 10 minutes. Every Wednesday from May to October there is party on the walking mall with food, beer and a band. One of the bars has the band come in after 9 p.m. and play for free all night.

We do have some crime, but most people don’t lock their doors. Ever.

Everywhere I go I run into someone I know.

One of my cow-orkers was at the grocery store when a person next to them said, “Where do I find the (some southern food item)?” The questioner was a Katrina refugee. In 72 hours we had filled their apartment with good furniture, found a case of the desired food, their kids were hooked up with play groups and both parents had better jobs.
A stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet, in Montana.

So that’s why I live here.

2

One of my cow-orkers was at the grocery store when a person next to them said, “Where do I find the (some southern food item)?” The questioner was a Katrina refugee. In 72 hours we had filled their apartment with good furniture, found a case of the desired food, their kids were hooked up with play groups and both parents had better jobs.
A stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet, in Montana.

—Whistlepig
That’s cool. :slight_smile: I don’t know if your cow-orker attends a church (it doesn’t really matter to me) but this is what is meant by following Christ’s teachings.

3

So …

If I was willing to move there, you could hook me up with a CS or clerical type job? After 2.5 years I am unable to get hired in my normal state … I am just about desperate enough to consider relocating … [I would also relocate to Cincinati OH FWIW …]

Honestly, grats on helping the refugees … too many people just don’t want to bother helping ‘transients’

4

Because the work is in NYC but I can’t afford to live in NYC. Also, I like the East Coast (I’m an East Coast girl–I’m hip; you’d really dig the styles I wear).

And I like the smallish-town atmosphere where I live. I can see the Empire State Building from my living room (quick glance out the window–it’s lit up red and green tonight), but I live in a little quiet town with trees and parks and front lawns with gardens.

5

To be clear, you should have said western Montana.

Western Montana (the westernmost third of the state) is where the mountains, the clear glacier-fed streams and lakes, and the vast majority of the forested land is. Once you get down off of the Continental Divide going east, at least between Lincoln and Great Falls, things quickly flatten out and dry out until, by Havre, there are no mountains to speak of, no forests, and very few small rivers and streams. The land is used for ranching and some wheat farming instead of lumber, mining, and tourism, and there are very few places anyone outside the region has heard of.

The majority of Montana looks more like Havre than Helena.

6

Las Vegas, Nevada

I have lived in Chicago, NYC, Berlin and LA and loved all of those places, but right now, I really like living in Las Vegas.

The weather - yeah, it is kind of cold now (60’s by day and low 30’s by night) but it is nice and toasty in the summer and I love the heat! And pretty much year round is it sunny with beautiful blue skies.

It is a 24 hour town - you can do almost anything here 24/7 and although I rarely go bowling at 3:00 AM, nor do I often shop for shoes at midnight, I can if I want to.

Affordable - was more-so when I (luckily) moved here a few years ago, but it is still a lot cheaper here than any of the other cities I have lived in.

Entertainment - you have the casinos, shows, Broadway shows, concerts, The Strip, Red Rock, and lots and lots of other things to do. Boredom is not a word usually associated with Las Vegas.

Everyone comes to visit…when you live here, almost everyone you have ever met in your lifetime will, at some time, come into town and you can meet them and catch up on old times.

Everything is new. Yes, I loved Europe because everything was old and had a history…same with NYC. But here, they are building so fast you can drive by a vacant lot and two weeks later, there is a bookshop and coffee shop open. There are a few neighborhood with older buildings, but for the most part, everything is new and clean.

For me, Las Vegas is the right place, for right now.

7

Funny how all the reasons you list (save the last) are all reason why I wouldn’t* want to live there. Sounds like it would be nice to visit, but it’s just too small for me. I couldn’t stand living next to all those trees and animals :confused:

Right Now, I live where I live because I would be arrested if I left. And even if I tried to leave, the fact that I’m in a foreign country with no passport would make things tricky at the airport. . . Oh well, I guess I’m stuck here.

8

Wow, Helena sounds like an awesome place to live!!

Right now I live in a dull suburban town halfway between Sacramento and San Francisco to be with my boyfriend, who is stationed at an Air Force base here. Hopefully he will be transferred back to the DC/Northern VA area next year, where I am from. I lived/will live there because 1) my family is there, 2) there are lots of jobs there.

I would love to live in a place like Helena, but what’s the job market like there?

9

I live where I am because my darling Marcie and I love Florida. I would prefer living a little further south, but Marcie’s employment keeps us where we are.

As to Montana, I was offered and declined a job in Havre, many years ago when I was still working as a VW mechanic. I’ve often wished I had accepted that job—I believe I would have learned to love Montana. After all, I loved South Dakota, for many of the reasons the OP loves Montana.

10

I suppose I live in Saudi Arabia for complex psychological reasons I would rather not fully explore. One facet of that must be my intense dislike of taxes.

Still, I have chosen to live overseas for a number of reasons. One is the purest form of wanderlust.

Another is the fact I find live overseas more varied and intense than life in the US. You see things when you live in another country. Things you would never notice back home. Life is just more fun overseas than the vanilla you get back home. I am sure Saudis in the US feel the same way.

Another thing is I like the lifestyle of a foreigner. Here I can and do have someone come in to paint my place, I used to have a gardner and a maid. My shirts are all custom made. I like that and could not afford it back in the US.

A bunch of silly reasons, I suppose.

11

Central Colorado Rockies. 11,200 feet.

I like the extremes of the weather. It’s either absolute crap or beautiful. None of those weeks of drear that you get back east. And I love the crap as much as a sunny day.

I like the solitude. It’s rare when anyone else drives down our ‘road’. We live on a dead end and are the only full time residents. There are two other houses.

The sky is a blue that you can only find at this altitude. There is a stream running on our property that I can drink from.

A foot of snow is no big deal. 0 degrees f is a bit nippy.

12

Easily. Helena is the state capitol so there are tons of clerical type jobs in Government.

The pay is low in Montana, but so is the cost of living.

13

Tallahassee, FL.

I live here by a total accident of fate. It’s where my wife was living when I came here from Canada to marry her. In the last 7 1/2 years we have both established careers here. It’s not like we both work at jobs that we could have pretty much anywhere. We both have highly specialized jobs that would be quite difficult to find if we moved anywhere else. One of us, or maybe both, would have to do something else for a living in another city. That would be a waste, considering what we’ve achieved in our time here. We don’t feel like starting over. Anywhere north/east/west would be colder; anywhere south would be hotter and more expensive, and crime is worse, and tourists are rampant.

That said, I think this is a beautiful place. There are gazillions of trees and flowering plants everywhere, it has all the amenities anyone would need, there is no industrial pollution. Crime is fairly low. The people are friendly. We’re three hours from Jacksonville, where my wife’s family lives. I wouldn’t mind living there, but there’s that employment issue, and the expense and crime. We’re doing OK here; there we could afford to live in the slums, and you can’t get anywhere without driving miles and miles. Here, it takes about 20 minutes to go anywhere in town. I get to contribute something to the community just by doing my job. Barring any unforseen accidents, I could have it until I’m too old to show up there. We’ll be staying.

As for the folks back 'ome, I can’t tell you how many times I heard people wish out loud that they could live in Florida. So here I am, living the Canadian Dream. Nyaah!

14

Oakland, CA

I moved here by accident. I wanted to move to the Bay Area and an apartment in Oakland was the first person to answer my Craig’s List ad.

I love it here. I love the food. You can get food from nearly every country on Earth- last night I went out to Ethiopian food. Literally anything you could want to eat, you can get. And everything is cheaper here than surrounding areas. Vietnamese sandwiches are two dollars. Movie tickets at the beautiful old movie palace down the street are two bucks cheaper than tickets in Berkeley of SF. Even gas gets a few cents knocked off it once you cross the Oakland border. I love the people here. There is so much diversity it’s insane. And for some reason Oakland is full of the nicest people I’ve ever met. Even the homeless people are outright nice. I love being in a city that still has a working class. It has an industrious energy and sense of neighborhood that surrounding cities have lost.

The location is great- the offerings of Berkeley and San Francisco are just a few minutes away. The weather here is always a few degrees warmer than anywhere else in the Bay Area. I live in a wonderful neighborhood with a very 1940’s feel- you still see people walking around in fedoras. I’ve got a bountiful farmer’s market just down the street every Saturday. I live right next to lake Merritt- a jewel of a lake surrounded by parks right in the middle of the city. From my apartment window I have a view of SF and Oakland and the bridge.

I never thought I would say this, but I love Oakland. I don’t know how long I’ll be here, but it’s going to be hard to move anywhere else.

15

I have to agree. I just moved here a couple of months and I’m loving it. The buffets alone are worth it.

Dude, unlimited craplegs. How awesome is that?

16

Wow, CraBlegs. I meant to say crablegs.

17

RandMcnally: Yeah, p and b are right next to each other on the keyboard.

:wink:

18

Dude, they totally moved on me.

19

While I currently reside in Denver, CO, and I like the town well enough to stay here for another year or so, I deeply regret moving away from my previous “home,” Coeur d’Alene, ID. Growing up in Great Falls, MT, I am a small-town-guy at heart.

The city of “CDA” borders Lake Coeur d’Alene, one of the most beautiful lakes in the western US. The countless trees, and numerous hills and mountains that surround the glassy blue-green water are enough to distract you from the monolithic “Resort” that towers over the shoreline. As much of an eyesore as it is, The CDA Resort provides a nice tourist based economy to keep the small town lively.

But if the Doldroms of a small town life ever got me down, Spokane, WA was about 30 minutes away, a college town with just enough spark to keep you happy.

I plan to move back to “CDA” eventually, as I doubt I will find another place that I love so much, but if I do, it will probebly be in Montana. :slight_smile:

BTW, whistlepig, My sister-in-law is from Helena. :stuck_out_tongue:

20

Well I live in Fargo N.D. because…
Well I …
Um…

I guess it’s because it’s too expensive to move and I have a job here.

Gah.