Nipple Twister
New member
About 20ish miles further north.....
....June Lake
....June Lake
Road Trip to find a new place to live and work
- Thread starter nctacoma
- Start date
Hi all,
Thanks for all the information, we are adding it to our list of towns and places to check out.
While we haven't found anywhere we want to live yet, we have been having some great adventures in the past few days.
We stopped at a friends' house in Santa Monica, borrowed their beach cruisers and found ourselves at Muscle Beach. We had a blast playing on all the gymnastic equipment on the beach.
Then we beat it as fast as possible out of the city and ended up in Death Valley for a few days. The night before we got into the park we camped in the desert somewhere. This seems to be a common past time here.
We did a great run up Mosaic Canyon
Then we did the 60 miles of washboard hell road to the Saline Valley Hot Springs. This is supposedly one of the remotest places in California. We had fun going over South Pass after the storms a few days ago. The Tundra was bouncing around in the snow and mud ruts down the pass. I literally didn't need to steer, the ruts did it for us. We got to the hot springs a bit after dark and set up camp. We were in for a treat once the sun came back up.
2 days at the hot springs and we decided to head out of Death Valley, South Pass was completely snow free now,
Misa is working today at a coffee shop with Wifi and I decided to venture up to Mount Whitney to see if I could do some backcountry snowboarding, but I only had 3 hours of time and by the time I found a good place to start hiking I had already used up one of my hours. So the dog and I went hiking and back into Lone Pine.
This afternoon we are heading to Manzanar. After this we will head down and northwest towards Kings Canyon and Yosemite.
Thanks for all the information, we are adding it to our list of towns and places to check out.
While we haven't found anywhere we want to live yet, we have been having some great adventures in the past few days.
We stopped at a friends' house in Santa Monica, borrowed their beach cruisers and found ourselves at Muscle Beach. We had a blast playing on all the gymnastic equipment on the beach.
Then we beat it as fast as possible out of the city and ended up in Death Valley for a few days. The night before we got into the park we camped in the desert somewhere. This seems to be a common past time here.
We did a great run up Mosaic Canyon
Then we did the 60 miles of washboard hell road to the Saline Valley Hot Springs. This is supposedly one of the remotest places in California. We had fun going over South Pass after the storms a few days ago. The Tundra was bouncing around in the snow and mud ruts down the pass. I literally didn't need to steer, the ruts did it for us. We got to the hot springs a bit after dark and set up camp. We were in for a treat once the sun came back up.
2 days at the hot springs and we decided to head out of Death Valley, South Pass was completely snow free now,
Misa is working today at a coffee shop with Wifi and I decided to venture up to Mount Whitney to see if I could do some backcountry snowboarding, but I only had 3 hours of time and by the time I found a good place to start hiking I had already used up one of my hours. So the dog and I went hiking and back into Lone Pine.
This afternoon we are heading to Manzanar. After this we will head down and northwest towards Kings Canyon and Yosemite.
grahamfitter
Expedition Leader
Don't discount New England. We have four real seasons, mountains, snow, ice, rivers, ocean, surf, accessible major cities and airports and we don't need to drive very far before the scenery changes. The people are a bit reserved but friendly enough when you get to know them.
Any towns in particular that you would recommend? All I really know of Montana is Missoula and Bozeman.
We are leaning towards towns smaller than both of those, but wouldn't be opposed to being in the area of towns like that.
We spent the past few days in the Sierras. As usual having an absolutely fantastic time.
We camped a bit south of the base of Mount Whitney for 2 nights and did some hiking and some backcountry snowboarding.
Then we headed around to the western side of the Sierras to Sequoia National Park. We were astonished at the beauty this time of the year in the park.
oh yeah, the trees are pretty big as well. Did some XC-Skiing around the trees with nary another soul in sight. Perfect.
Did I mention there was some snow at higher elevations?
And a different kind of beauty a lower elevations. It is nice to be in a lush green place again after a few weeks in desert climates.
Heading north to Yosemite today and tomorrow, will probably spend a few days in the park and then north to Oregon
We camped a bit south of the base of Mount Whitney for 2 nights and did some hiking and some backcountry snowboarding.
Then we headed around to the western side of the Sierras to Sequoia National Park. We were astonished at the beauty this time of the year in the park.
oh yeah, the trees are pretty big as well. Did some XC-Skiing around the trees with nary another soul in sight. Perfect.
Did I mention there was some snow at higher elevations?
And a different kind of beauty a lower elevations. It is nice to be in a lush green place again after a few weeks in desert climates.
Heading north to Yosemite today and tomorrow, will probably spend a few days in the park and then north to Oregon
keezer37
Explorer
Anxious to hear your opinion on Bend if you still intend to stop there. Everything I've read/heard about the place sounds good. No crazy amounts of rain or severe temps and housing costs look good. I do wonder about the number of timeshares there. My assumption is it's beautiful there in the summer but offers little in the way of employment.
Well this is appropriate.
We just pulled into Oregon and are sitting in a bookstore in ASHLAND, Oregon.
We bought a gazetteer for the state and we are going to explore this area a bit. We are on our way to the local forest service office for the Rogue Valley to see about places to stay while we are exploring.
Yes, Ashland is a little bigger than we are looking for, but the area looks great and there are a bunch of smaller towns that might suit our needs. We will spend about 1 month poking around Oregon and then another month poking around Washington, then off to Idaho.
I might see if I can pick up some on-call work with a wildland fire-fighting crew or something along those lines while we are in a state for a longer period of time. It will be so nice not to spend the majority of our days in the truck for a while.
We both feel that the search has finally begun.
And to the other poster, we will be in Bend in a little while as we are having some mail forwarded there and many people have recommended the area to us.
We spent the past few days in Yosemite(I think it should be called Yosemite National highway) It was so crowded even for early spring and the valley was still snow covered. We got away from the crowds and realized how special the place is. I don't think I could handle it in the height of tourist season though.
I will post some pictures of that soon.
My sister and her husband have a cute house close to town(walking distance). They would probably let you stay in their pop-up tent trailer in the backyard for a couple nights.
Let me know if you want me to ask.
Either way, have fun!!!
The whole area is really neat and i'm sure you could find some reasonable land in the smaller other towns.
Let me know if you want me to ask.
Either way, have fun!!!
The whole area is really neat and i'm sure you could find some reasonable land in the smaller other towns.
Anxious to hear your opinion on Bend if you still intend to stop there. Everything I've read/heard about the place sounds good. No crazy amounts of rain or severe temps and housing costs look good. I do wonder about the number of timeshares there. My assumption is it's beautiful there in the summer but offers little in the way of employment.
We are in Bend right now, yes the weather is good, people are all super friendly so far, it is on the dry side of the mountains so not a lot of rain. We drove from downtown Bend today to Mt. Bachelor to do some snowboarding and the drive was only 30 minutes. Tons of people on bicycles all over the place.
I think the housing prices are a bit inflated, I read somewhere that Bend had the most overpriced real estate market in the country a few years ago. It seems like a great outdoorsy place, but for us I don't think it is what we are looking for, I haven't been able to find any small farms around, probably due to the lack of rain and 300 days of sunshine a year. There is definitely a lot of new development around the area, lots of subdivisions and condos, not my cup of tea, but I guess it means that people want to be here.
We are looking for an area much smaller and quieter than this. We wouldn't mind being around an area like this, just not downtown.
We did manage to find a travelers secret gem, good showers, at Mcmenamins St. Francis School. If anyone is traveling in this area and needs a shower, you can go to their turkish bath for $5 per person and you have to shower before getting into the baths. A great deal indeed.
Tomorrow we are heading to some hot springs in the forest and then to Sisters, Oregon to check out the [/U]My Own Two Hands Festival[/U]
After that, we are not sure where we will head, possibly up to the Hood River Area or maybe west to check out the Eugene area.
Thanks for this offer, this is really nice of you. We only ended up staying in Ashland for 2 nights though. The Applegate Valley was a beautiful place to spend some time in.
keezer37
Explorer
Thank you for the info. It's good to get an opinion on a town from someone who doesn't live there. The biking is a big plus for me. I'd recommend http://www.realtor.com/ to get a feel for prices and availability of homes with acreage. They have good filters for lot size, etc. I haven't looked at Eugene much but I recall it is pricey (university's there I think). Eugene is twice the size by population with respect to Bend. Places with land are not what you would call abundant in OR.
City Data http://www.city-data.com/city/Oregon.html is another useful tool if you don't already use it. Weather, Home Value, Voting Trends, Crime, Male/Female Ratio, etc.
Here's a lovely little family oriented town: http://www.medinaoh.org/. I might even know someone with four acres of land for sale.:ylsmoke: