This is an interesting thread to follow. I'm 59 and retired and live in No Va. My wife won't move because she's comfortable in the house and comfortable in the small town we live in. The good news is from my front door I can walk to the town office and see the Mayor if I want, walk to a 7-11 type store, walk to two restaurants, the bank, the Post Office and the auto repair place. That's what retired folks want she says. Even if you can't drive you can do pretty well. The house we live in is circa 2,000 square feet, 1/4 acre fenced yard. Market value is probably 400K currently. That doesn't matter because we aren't leaving.
Good health care, three big chain grocery stores 3 miles away max and of course more restaurants there. From my wife's optic why would we leave.
From the Sportmans aspect it pretty much sucks for upland. I can do preserves at $20 bucks a pheasant within about an hour. A few grouse attempts within 2 hours. Have the Shenandoah River nearby, but you can't eat any fish out of it because of Mercury and other bad things. Also, any place you go that's public is slammed with people.
I've dreamed about having a small cabin in Maine because I have dogs and the dogs need to hunt. However, I think the wiser course of action would be to find a place and rent for a month in October and hunt till I drop. Easier said then done.
I do think the look before you leap applies and one has to fully consider a crap load of factors before making the plunge to move. If it was just me, I'd move to the Midwest in a heartbeat and during the late winter snowbird to South Texas and chase waterfowl and Quail. However, there's more then me to factor in and I appreciate my wife's common sense approach to things and also certainly have to factor in what would happen to her if we moved and then I was suddenly out of the picture. Wouldn't be fair to her for sure.
Good thread and certainly like to read all the responses.
PS. I like NH as its a lovely state. However, I bird hunted last year in the Pittsburg NH area and I would never ever want to hunt in an area that had that many hunters pounding the same covers over and over again. Only saving grace was the food was pretty spectacular as was the scenery.
Last edited by tut; 08/26/15 07:51 AM.
