I live in New Bern. I've only lived in N.C. since Jan of this year. I moved here from Vermont (San Diego before that and Ohio before that) and let me tell you, I love N.C. soooooo much more than VT. They can keep their snow, lol.
Just moved to Chapel Hill this summer from TN - so that counts, right? :D Love it here. Still learning my way around, but it's been an incredibly positive move. I love being smack in between the ocean and the mountains. I don't know if it gets better than this. Peace.
Oh, yeah...it counts! It's funny, this is sort of art imitating life in that there are more transplants in this forum than natives, it seems. Same thing everywhere I go around here!
Jennifer - Maybe we transplants are more present in the forums because we've made a choice about living here and it's a new piece defining us that we're still settling into? I don't know.
Trisha - My sister lives in Chelsea, VT - and you are right! They can keep all of that snow!
The thing that is kicking my butt here though is Eastern Time. It is KILLING me. I was just in San Diego and the football games were at 10, 1, and 5 - all over by 8:30 pm. That is so sane! Staying up until almost midnight to see the end of the 4th quarter is not. How do people manage it? Don't people on the East Coast need sleep?? Am I the only one who even thinks of the time zone as a major adjustment?
*ps - tried to post this earlier and it didn't go up - so now if it posts twice - I'm sorry! Peace.
I know where your sister lives. We lived in Barre which is right next to Montpelier. As for time zones, I have a hard enough time with daylight savings being over, lol. I used to LOVE that football was on so early on the west coast. Not because I like to watch it, but because it wasn't on allllllll day long while my hubby watched it. ;)
I live in Hillsborough, been in this area for 33 years. Ok, I'm the old lady, here! Before moving here, I was an Air Force brat and lived all over the US, so I'm NOT moving again!! Actually, I love it here. but if I find that perfect affordable house in the mountains, I'll move there.
toni
Oh,oh,oh! My very favorite quilt artist (Hollis Chatelain) lives in Hillsborough!! I keep thinking I should figure out where Hillsborough is and stalk hang out on the million to one chance of meeting her. Do you know her? :D
Ok - here's a North Carolina question for you. On the weather they mention the weather forecast for the coast, the mountains, and the Piedmont. Is everyone who is not on the coast or in the mtns considered "Piedmont"? Anyone, anyone?
*notices she has talked too much (again) and vows (again) to try to let others get a word in edgewise* (But y'all it's so cool to be "meeting" bloggers in the "area". I read a bunch of Asheville bloggers now - and I love how knowing a little bit about the geography around them makes me hear their words.) *shutting up for real now*
Chapel Hill is right down the road (20 minutes) from Hillsborough! I do my grocery shopping in Chapel Hill cuz we have yet to hit the 21st century here! Just get on I-40 W, there's an exit for Hillsborough. Let the stalking begin! I don't know this artisit, but I'm wondering if her work is in the new gallery downtown. There are some lovely fiber arts there.
As for weather folks - my pet peeve that they just lump all the rest of us together! In our area, if it isn't happening in Raleigh, it isn't happening. If you look at the map on the NC Blogs page the Piedmont is just a small section, but I think the weather people include the whole middle of the state.
So, make a little trip down the road to Hillsborough - we're nice folk - really! :D Plan to stay for dinner. We have a few nice restaurants downtown.
Lilymane, there is a BEAUTIFUL drive from Chapel Hill to Hillsborough if you take the back roads. It's really right down the road from where you live. You should check it out.
As for the Piedmont area, my guess to your quesiton would be YES. Piedmont includes W-S, Greensboro, etc....all those "middle of the state" places. But then Charlotte - that's not Piedmont, is it?
After hearing what you all have said, I've been looking at maps and if it warms up a teensy bit any time soon, I think I'll have to bike to Hillsborough. In July my partner and I biked from Chapel Hill to Atlantic Beach - or really I biked two of the three days because it was too hot. It was 104 and even though we biked as early as it was light and stopped by noon to avoid the heat - it was too hot. (She is from Miami and the heat didn't seem to get to her - but I thought it was getting unsafe for me.) North Carolina is soooo beautiful and biking is such a great way to see it. Erm, except for the pig farms. They're a bit whiff and when you're on a bike it takes a subjectively looooonnnng time to get past the stench. I'm not quite strong enough to get myself up Old Fort Mountain so biking towards Asheville might be out of my reach right now - but Hillsborough? That I can do! Thanks for the map info and the recommendations. Y'all rock.
I live in Wilmington, NC. I originally moved from the DC area to Greensboro and was there for 5 years before I moved to Wilmington. It took me a long time to adjust to Wilmington after Greensboro, but as I've married a native, I'm resigned to it now.
Megs - What's so different between Greensboro and Wilmington? Why was it such a hard adjustment? I ask because It seems like DC to anywhere in NC would be a bigger adjustment than between two places within the state.
I grew up outside DC and I never liked the pace of it, or its suburban strip-mall-ishness. Greensboro was a good go-between, though, to keep me from insane culture shock. It was like being in a slower, friendlier suburb--but this time a suburb of nothing. And I was a Quaker, living in a Quaker area, and very content there. I didn't drive then, and I didn't have to--I could get to a grocery store, a vet, a dry cleaner, my job, my favorite bar, a grocery store...all on foot.
Moving to Wilmington was strange. I'd never lived in a town, and I was totally unprepared for the hipster "downtown" lifestyle. Also, everything is spread out and I had to learn to drive. There are parts of Wilmington that are very beautiful, but ultimately it is oddly laid out, and populated almost solely with sand and pine trees. I missed the lushness of Greensboro. And it's a much less politically-liberal area. In Greensboro I seemed always to be among like minds.
But I've been here for almost 8 years now, and I've grown to love downtown and to find my own cluster of minds to be like with.
My Grandpa (all his life in NM and CA) used to give directions by saying "Turn North on ..." and I thought it was so strange because where I'm from, the roads loop and curve and other roads come in from all angles so you could never give good directions that way. We gave directions like "Go away from town", "Go to the Free Will Baptist Church and turn left", and "If you cross the river, you've gone too far."
Where exactly in this humid, tree-infested place of pork worship do you keep your cowboy boots mold free? :D
