Come West!
Well, I suppose I should touch base here. After all, I do pay to host this site, right?
The visit with the stepbrother and his family was quite enjoyable. They are planning to move out West and we managed to do a passable job of pointing out the plus side of living in Salt Lake City. Yes, there are plus sides: largest city in the Intermountain West, lowest unemployment rate in the nation, booming economy, one of the healthiest cities in the nation, an education system that although ranks among the lowest in per pupal spending, regularly ranks among the top five in SAT-ACT scores, low crime rate, mountains, desert, and everything in between with the exception of the ocean, family near by--both blood and step--clean, and still reasonable home prices compared to other places they are considering. Hell, you can buy a house here in the Salt Lake valley for $250,000 that would easily put you back at least a cool million in Kalifornia California or the West Coastal region of Oregon. For us it would be a wonderful thing because it’s always pleasant to have people you like close by.
Anyway, we’ll see what happens.
I can see that the one aspect that would take getting used to for someone who has spent most of their life in the North East--Boston--area would be the general culture difference of the Intermountain West. It’s difficult to describe, but there is a difference.
