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Due to a somewhat odd set of circumstances, my wife and I have started to think about, instead of sitting around watching cave videos and talking cave diving in New York, moving to Gainesville where we could get off the couch and go diving at the drop of a hat.
Anyone else pulled the trigger on something like this? Is there anything to do other than dive? Does it really matter, because we'd be too busy diving to give a damn?
Are you independently Wealthy? there in not crap for Work in Gainesville unless you work at the School or in the Service industry. Or if you are a Florida licensed Plumber willing to cover Clermont to Lake City. I can get you work.
We just recently retired down here. However it was part of a long term plan with Chateau H20. They are right above about there being no real work.
MA
IT depends what you like to do. I did it - I'm from NJ (though I had a couple stops in between.)
There's a TON to do. If you enjoy the outdoors, it's amazing. The rivers give you countless opportunities to be outside.
If you like to go out and party, the limit on partying type spots will get old quick. Same for dining out.
The diving will be awesome for the first year, or two, or whatever it takes and you may continue to dive but will give up some since it's right down the street. You might start giving up weekend summer dives at Ginnie Springs, especially when it's the only one open. You may consider a trip to Marianna a haul when you used to do it in a heartbeat and it was 14 hours away.
The dive community is growing there and that helps keep life interesting. Just following the drama is better than having to pay a cable bill.
It's been my experience that people either love or hate Gainesville. If you went to UF, the sun rises and sets in Gainesville. I worked for a company in Gainesville for two years and couldn't wait to get out and go home to Orlando on the weekends. It is nice to get up to the High Springs area though as it's nice and quiet and obviously for the diving as well.
I have over the last two decades seen so many people move to "cave country" to live the dream,even remember one person getting divorced to do it. I can't recall very many staying,or staying active in cave diving. Kind of reminded me of someone from the midwest I worked with that went to the beach every weekend,and decided that is where they have to be. They relocated to the beach,and over the couple years they stayed before they moved,they got tired of the beach and quit going-same paradigm applies to cave diving. Good luck on your decision.Quote:
Originally Posted by oya
I moved to PCB, which is within a one-hour drive of great cave diving. The trick is to not go so often you burn out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kelly Jessop
The difference for you of moving from "entertainment capital of the world" (as Tim Wilson calls it) to PCB,is not that dramatic,since for most people in South GA,PCB is a second home. Think if you moved 1000 miles,for the sole purpose of cave diving. Besides,we all know you moved to be closer to a Sonny's,since Columbus has so many Countrys. :-)Quote:
Originally Posted by Slüdge
They actually opened a Sonny's in Columbus a few years ago. It closed seven months later.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kelly Jessop
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kelly Jessop
It's common in Vermont for people to move here for the skiing, and then to realize that they've moved to a rural backwater where the amenities they took for granted in the city are nonexistent, good jobs are few and far between, and that winter is a lot more fun when it's for a ski weekend than as an every day reality 5 months of the year. Some settle in, but more of them flee after a winter or two.
This is especially true for people whose northern New England fantasies include running a small town general store or a bed & breakfast, which pretty much guarantee that they won't have any free time to go skiing and wouldn't be able to afford to if they did. There are real estate agents who make a pretty good living by repeatedly selling the same general stores and B&B's to new hopefuls from down-country every couple of years.
But if Tracy and I acted on our idle fantasies of moving to Suwannee County, we'd just be trading one poverty-stricken rural backwater for another. It's what we're used to. Just hot and flat and with cave diving vs mountainous and cold and no cave diving!
Mike