BoomerD
No Lifer
- Feb 26, 2006
- 63,183
- 11,564
- 136
I live in a small beach town on the WA coast. We’re primarily a tourist town, nut have about 6500 full-time residents…MOST of us are single-family homeowners, but there are a few condominium owners, apartment dwellers, house renters, with a butt load of vacation homes, and RV lots. (limited to 90 days occupancy per year)
I have 2 story houses on both sides of me…one is a vacation home for a contractor out of Tacoma and his family…I MIGHT see them 4 times per year. The other side belongs to one of the owners of the local Chinese restaurant. When we moved in 5 years ago, they had 4 kids living with them. (One has gone off to college, another one is almost ready to go to college…but if the school bus didn’t stop in front of their house, I’d never know they have kids…they don’t play outside, make almost no noise…and the parents work at their restaurant so much, it’s almost like no one lives there.
Behind my house is a state owned wetlands that’s a wildlife preserve…but is open to water fowl hunting during the season. There’s about 400 yards of wetlands…then the bay. No one will ever be able to build there.
I LOVE living here…but, yes, being out past the ass end of BFE, there are drawbacks.
Our only “real” grocery store charges prices that border on outright rape…
Our only gas station (in town…there are 2 out on the highway) is always at least 30 cents/ gallon more than the nearest “town.(25 miles) And during the tourist season, might be 50 cents to almost $1.00/gallon more.
We have a small medical/dental clinic in town…the doctor retired…so there’s only a couple of nurse practitioners there now, so most people drive about an hour to get medical care at the better hospital/medical clinic in the county…or 75 miles to Olympia, 100 miles to Tacoma, or 130+ miles to Seattle.
Still…living in a place that almost has more deer than people, with black bears and cougars roaming the streets, and at night, it can be dead silent…with the silence usually broken only by the sounds of the waves…or the cacophony of frogs in the wetland…I’ll take the inconveniences over living nut to butt in a big city. If you like city life…good for you, but it ain’t for everyone.
I have 2 story houses on both sides of me…one is a vacation home for a contractor out of Tacoma and his family…I MIGHT see them 4 times per year. The other side belongs to one of the owners of the local Chinese restaurant. When we moved in 5 years ago, they had 4 kids living with them. (One has gone off to college, another one is almost ready to go to college…but if the school bus didn’t stop in front of their house, I’d never know they have kids…they don’t play outside, make almost no noise…and the parents work at their restaurant so much, it’s almost like no one lives there.
Behind my house is a state owned wetlands that’s a wildlife preserve…but is open to water fowl hunting during the season. There’s about 400 yards of wetlands…then the bay. No one will ever be able to build there.
I LOVE living here…but, yes, being out past the ass end of BFE, there are drawbacks.
Our only “real” grocery store charges prices that border on outright rape…
Our only gas station (in town…there are 2 out on the highway) is always at least 30 cents/ gallon more than the nearest “town.(25 miles) And during the tourist season, might be 50 cents to almost $1.00/gallon more.
We have a small medical/dental clinic in town…the doctor retired…so there’s only a couple of nurse practitioners there now, so most people drive about an hour to get medical care at the better hospital/medical clinic in the county…or 75 miles to Olympia, 100 miles to Tacoma, or 130+ miles to Seattle.
Still…living in a place that almost has more deer than people, with black bears and cougars roaming the streets, and at night, it can be dead silent…with the silence usually broken only by the sounds of the waves…or the cacophony of frogs in the wetland…I’ll take the inconveniences over living nut to butt in a big city. If you like city life…good for you, but it ain’t for everyone.