Relocating to warmer climate...

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I would say take a look here in Oklahoma. We have more shoreline than any other state in the U.S. But since your wife's a teacher... well.... our teachers just don't get paid crap here. We're like 47th for teacher pay. Mid to South Texas sounds like a very viable option!

[Escondido]

I would put in another vote for Central Texas. It meets all of your goals. There are a ton of smaller towns along the highland lakes chain that are nice places to live. Getting a house on the water can be pricey but off of the water home prices are reasonable. We haven't seen the crazy real estate that other parts of the country has.

One thing you might miss is the fall colors. We have some color in the hill country but not like the NE.

We are on Lake LBJ (Marble Falls is the main town), it is not the prettiest lake of the chain but it is constant level. That is very important this year. It seems like around Lake LBJ you could get waterfrontage in the 300K-400K area, of course you can go higher as well. I saw a new place just built on the lake, 8,800 sqft for $6.25 million. Glad I am not that developer, he's gotta be sweating it a little. It is an hour from Austin and 1.5 hrs from SA so you can get to a city if you need to but still avoid the hassle.

I don't know how easy it would to find a job for you but it seems like every town is scrambling to find teachers.

While I am biased because I already live here, there are a lot of nice places already mentioned. If I was starting from scratch, I don't know which direction I would head. That's a tough call. I would be intrigued by teh Carolinas. While we are 3 hrs from the coast, the Gulf doesn't compare to Mrytle Beach.

Good luck with your search. What would be great is to load up the boat driving across the southern part of the and just plop down when you find a place you like.

[dogbert]

Originally posted by Escondido
I would put in another vote for Central Texas. It meets all of your goals. There are a ton of smaller towns along the highland lakes chain that are nice places to live. Getting a house on the water can be pricey but off of the water home prices are reasonable. We haven't seen the crazy real estate that other parts of the country has.

One thing you might miss is the fall colors. We have some color in the hill country but not like the NE.

We are on Lake LBJ (Marble Falls is the main town), it is not the prettiest lake of the chain but it is constant level. That is very important this year. It seems like around Lake LBJ you could get waterfrontage in the 300K-400K area, of course you can go higher as well. I saw a new place just built on the lake, 8,800 sqft for $6.25 million. Glad I am not that developer, he's gotta be sweating it a little. It is an hour from Austin and 1.5 hrs from SA so you can get to a city if you need to but still avoid the hassle.

I don't know how easy it would to find a job for you but it seems like every town is scrambling to find teachers.

While I am biased because I already live here, there are a lot of nice places already mentioned. If I was starting from scratch, I don't know which direction I would head. That's a tough call. I would be intrigued by teh Carolinas. While we are 3 hrs from the coast, the Gulf doesn't compare to Mrytle Beach.

Good luck with your search. What would be great is to load up the boat driving across the southern part of the and just plop down when you find a place you like.

You comin' to the Reunion on Lake Austin this Saturday?

[raythompson]

Originally posted by Escondido
We are on Lake LBJ (Marble Falls is the main town), it is not the prettiest lake of the chain but it is constant level.

When I lived in Live Oak Texas, just north of San Antonio and just before the Schertz speed trap, I would trailer my boat to Inks Lake which is a small constant level lake. Inks Lake is fed by Lake Buchanan and then feeds Lake LBJ.

I would stay at the Inks Lake state park when I was in the area. It was well worth the trip from San Antonio to get to the area. I liked the lake because it was never really busy, the campground was excellent with tent pads and running water at all the sites. They also had hot showers available at the park. One of the finest state campgrounds in the area and it was only a few dollars a night. I had a yearly pass to all the Texas state parks which was well worth the money.

The hill country is definitely a nice area. Not quite the mountains we have in East Tennessee. And yes, we do have fall colors here which I missed when in Texas. In Texas fall lasted about 3 days and winter was only about 1.5 days. Although I do remember the time that San Antonio received 13 inches of snow on a Friday. Shut the entire area down for the weekend. Next weekend everyone was sweating in the heat again.

I used to also use the Comal river using the boat ramp between the east and west bound lanes of I-10. One time someone tossed a bottle from the bridge and the bottle hit in my boat causing damage to a seat. The bottle missed me by only a couple of feet. I would liked to have found that SOB and had him/her/it arrested on deadly assualt charges. The river was good but was sometimes crowded. You had to follow lanes and turns had to be quick and sharp when changing directions. There is also the matter of that low water dam that is not marked. I can tell you from experience that it can severely twist a stainless steel prop.

I have also used Canyon Lake not too far from New Braunfels. It was the closest lake. Some days it would be good, but most days it was fairly rough and sometimes downright unusable. The sailboats loved the lake due to the constant wind. The sailboats were also @ssholes as they thinked they own the lake and generally despise power boats. You also have to watch for stumps on the edges of the lakes and especially on the approach to the western marinas.

Canyon Lake is where I broke my back when I was diving into shallow water. I crushed three vertebra but did not other damage. I had tingling in my arms and legs for a few days, spent a few weeks in a steel neck support, but other than that I survived OK. Best part was the helicopter ride from the Fort Sam Houston recreation area to the New Braunfels hospital.

I thought that Potters Creek State Park was one of the better camping areas on the lake. The boat ramp was excellent and was sheltered in a cove. It make retrieval easier when the afternoon winds could get strong.

Texas has many good lakes. Having experienced them and then used the the Tennessee River system I have got to say that the Tennessee River system has them all beat. Water that we now consider rough here was considered smooth at Canyon Lake. The water is not quite as warm here and the season is a little shorter. One other advantage here is that you can travel hundreds of miles on one direction if you want to go through a couple of dams. If you dont, you can still travel over 60 miles in one direction from Melton Hill Dam to Watts Bar Dam. All of it navigable at all times with the channel marked.

And it stays green here through the summer where Texas turns brown.

[Lucky 275]

Ray,

I was eating @ Pappasitos on the loop when that storm hit San Antonio. They closed down 35 shortly after we go on it. That was the longest drive I've ever had to make back to SWT.

Long live the Guadalupe river!

[mtnsmith]

Was that storm back in '83 or '84??? If so, then I remember it as well. We had just moved there from Nebraska to get away from the snow...go figure. Like you said though, we were on Lake Medina the next weekend.

[raythompson]

Originally posted by Lucky 275
Ray,

I was eating @ Pappasitos on the loop when that storm hit San Antonio. They closed down 35 shortly after we go on it. That was the longest drive I've ever had to make back to SWT.

Long live the Guadalupe river!

Yeh, I was working downtown and live in Live Oak, normally a 45 minute commute. I left work at 3:00P and did not get home until 7:00P. I stayed home the entire weekend and did nothing. I could not really go anywhere anyway. Quite a storm.