My apologies to regular readers for not posting lately. We took a short vacation up in North Georgia. Went fishing and climbed a mountain. It was our daughter’s first summit, with many more to follow.
And, well… We have decided we are going to move.
We currently live on the east coast of Florida, which is being inundated with people moving down from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. I do not think these folks are as liberal politically as many people assume (they are moving to a tax haven, after all), but I honestly cannot take being around these folks anymore. Their sniping, their road rage, their general nastiness. They are filling every public space with it, physically and online. I am accustomed to putting up with snowbirds, but this year, the snowbirds decided to stay. The only thing that has kept me sane are the abundant hiking and biking trails and a tandem kayak. But we clearly cannot raise a child in this environment.
We are looking at moving to the Gulf Coast of Florida, which seems to be where all the families (and actual Southerners) are headed. We booked a trip to the Ft. Myers area next week, and will probably drive up and down the coast from there. Hopefully it will fit our expectations, otherwise we might just say fuck it and become permanent residents of some Caribbean island.
All this is to say, don’t expect a lot of writing from me until we have all this sorted. I am still trying to work on my education books when I have a spare moment.
I hope all of you are doing well and are finding things that make you happy these days. We are getting close to the election, and the one thing I can say from taking a lot of road trips lately is that Americans have definitely red-pilled hard. Even in urban areas, I did not see a single Biden sign. Not. A. Single. One. “Elect me, and I will have a mandatory mask mandate, schools will be closed forever, and a California politician will be a heartbeat away from the presidency” does not seem like much of a winning platform. I think Americans are over all the sabotage, dysfunction, manufactured crises, and pettiness, and they have chosen a side. And it’s the side that wants to make America great again.
Days of Sunshine 
Amen. Glad to hear you’ve got a plan. I’ve heard the panhandle is good sane people. Thinking of a move from insane new mexico to Kristi Noem’s totalitarian-free zone of South Dakota, but probably just a pipe dream. The blue state governor’s are truly attempting to despair their constituents’ souls.
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South Dakota is gorgeous. I am a fair weather creature though, couldn’t do it. I spent summers up in South Dakota as a teenager, and they have wooden fences along the interstates to shield them from the snow drifts.
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Like five minutes in the Black Hills, however, and you can see why people think it is a spiritually significant place.
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Grew up in Iowa, so I know about snow. We were hoping the southwest corner of the state aka Rapid City, would not be quite so frozen tundra prone.
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Some people love the snow. Rest of my family lives in Colorado. I’m just gardening-obsessed, so year-round growing season is amazing to me.
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Been trying to raise a garden for years here with no success. This year I actually have a small potato patch of 10 plants coming up! And one lonely lima bean plant. Very excited!
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Good for you! We planted potatoes only one year, on our old hobby farm. Then began the Great Potato Beetle Invasion. I am militant about gardening organically, but not gonna lie, I contemplated napalm that year.
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This is in a raised bed the beetles have not yet dialed in the coordinates to…fingers crossed.
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I did the same thing you did. I hadn’t seen you post in a while and I was concerned. Glad you and yours are to borrow a supremely southern phrase, “hanging in there like a hair in a biscuit.” The mountains are lovely and the gulf coast holds a very dear place in my heart. You can’t go wrong.
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Looking forward to the sunsets and a big boating community!
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I am a little taken aback at your decision to move due to unpleasant neighbors. It surprises me in that you seem to have organized your lives (remote work, home schooling) around the ability to have as much or as little contact with the surrounding world as you choose. And your list of grievances don’t seem compelling.
If you think changing your physical location can avoid online nastiness, you are not completely Clear On the Concept.
No place is immune to road rage. I am not that familiar with Florida, but I would think your battalions of 92 year old drivers would absorb a lot of the damage.
I am, however, fully on board with the sniping complaint. If your neighbors are standing behind trees and shooting at you it is definitely time to move on.
I have a friend and former coworker who retired to Punta Gorda. As far as I know he is happy there, but given that he is from New Jersey you may not find that reassuring.
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HOAs are death, in my humble opinion.
Good fences make good neighbors!
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AMEN
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😲😲😲 You are unhappy with your surroundings ⁉️‼ After building that gorgeous yard?? 😲 There’s always tradeoffs until you have arrived in Heaven – or Hell. Then, nothing , or everything, to be unhappy with.
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To be honest, the garden has been a big driver of wanting to leave. I want to be able to go all-out on a garden. I will never be able to that in a deed-restricted community. So my quest for a place that allows all of us to flourish is on.
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Not gonna lie, there are some plants I am thinking about digging up and moving with me.
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