Thinking of moving to Tennessee, need input please
 

Looking at moving out of Michigan, and Tennessee looks appealing. I don't want to be too far from a flying site, and hoping some of you can give me some first-hand experience with life in TN. I know I don't want Memphis (crime), maybe Knoxville or Bristol area? Want to be in suburbs but not necessarily in subdivision, scenic surroundings, no areas of natural disaster (flooding etc) but within driving distance to an airport, hospital, shopping, restaurants, entertainment, schools etc. I plan on taking some trips to explore the different areas to see it first hand, but I'm pretty overwhelmed with all the choices/options.

Appreciate any help.

RE: Thinking of moving to Tennessee, need input please
 

Can't tell you a thing about Knoxville or the Tri Cities area. If you need information about Mid Tenn, especially the Nashville area, then I can help you.

Bill, Waco Brother #1

RE: Thinking of moving to Tennessee, need input please
 

I lived in Asheville, N.C. for 16 yrs. It's just over the mountains from Johnson City, Tn. You CAN'T find a more beautifull place than that whole area. Asheville has the mountains, mild winters, mild summers & long springs & falls. The economy in the Asheville area is going great guns. I can't say about Johnson City. I have spent time in Johnson City & found to be absolutely beautiful. The whole area has numerous restaurants, good schools etc. I think Bristol is more of a "country" city & I've heard that they along with Johnson City have some fairly bad storms. On the other hand, when Asheville gets a "bad storm" It's usually hard rain & the wind blowing at 20 to 30 mph. Asheville is on a "high plateau" & the mountains around it seem to knock or stear most all storms either to the north ( Johnson City) or to the south ( Greeneville, S.C.) In the winter,they usually will have a couple of big snows, there is NOTHING more beautiful than the mountains after a snow !! The last tornado they had was in 1955 & it was in the foothills not right around Ashville. The economy in Ashville is very diversified which makes it a great place to have a small business. I've lived in Florida, Indiana, & Asheville. If I could pick an ideal place to live, it would be Asheville. Also, they have more shopping & restaurants, public parks etc.,etc., than you could ever visit Good Luck !! Ed

RE: Thinking of moving to Tennessee, need input please
 

Check out Cumberland County, approx 60 miles west of Knoxville, intersected by I40, located up on the Cumberland Plateau. Great weather, great scenery, but not near any large cities, if you are the big city
type. Nearest large cities are Knoxville, Chattanooga 90 miles to the SE and Nashville 125 miles west. We have a small local club with a great flying site, Cumberland County Radio Control Club. Local towns
are Crossville and Fairfield Glade (retirement/resort community). Lots of golf courses in the area. [8D]

RE: Thinking of moving to Tennessee, need input please
 

Thanks all for your input. Right now I'm about 45 minutes from Detroit, and although I don't have any reason to go there, I like to be reasonably close to a metro airport and the good hospitals that usually go along with a city. Don't have any interest in living right downtown, and the small towns sound more appealing to me as I age. I really like the idea of flying my models year round (or close to it) and riding my motorcycle for more than just a few months a year. TN looks good so far. Planning to vacation this August to get my first taste of it.

RE: Thinking of moving to Tennessee, need input please
 

Try Clarksville TN. I have lived there for over 20 years now. Its 45 minutes outside of Nashville, brand new hospital plenty of suburban homes and country right in the middle of the city. Yes strange to say but true.  East TN is very nice too and more of a vacation area.</p>

RE: Thinking of moving to Tennessee, need input please
 

Hey Pilgrim,

Ilive in Asheville, about 5 miles west of the Asheville regional airport. It's nice to be able to be at the airport for a flight in less than 10 minutes. It is beautiful here, and I belong to two different flying clubs (one just north of Asheville and one just west of the airport).

Riding motorcycles can't get any than here. The Blue Ridge Parkway is right here, and the Tail of the Dragon is also right nearby. Lots of great roads!!

Plenty of great hospitals and healthcare; this is a retirement magnet and has all of the accomodations for that as well.

You should definitely check it out. We moved here 6 years ago and love it.

Good luck on your search!!

Mark

RE: Thinking of moving to Tennessee, need input please
 

I was in Nashville for a few days for a Helicopter school,,, That was a nice place with big wide open fields and of course the Jack Daniels Distillery was just down the road from there too,,, I didn t have a plane with me so it was a no brainer as to where to spend my free time:D


BV

RE: Thinking of moving to Tennessee, need input please
 

Guys, thanks for all the info. We are planning a week long vacation to Knoxville area in August, and will check out as many areas in driving distance as possible. I'm finding lots of people that have relatives in TN, and all say great things about the entire state! I hope to check out some flying clubs while we are there. Who knows, If I can afford enough land, maybe I'll make my own airstrip if there isn't one close enough. Really looking forward to checking it out, and the best part would be less winter than here in MI. Thanks for all your input :D

RE: Thinking of moving to Tennessee, need input please
 

One thing, We are full, No vacancies. If you are from North of the Ohio river, you are welcome to visit, bring your money, and leave all of it here. When your time is up, take all your kids and other animals with you when you go. Come back when you have more money. And we don't care how they do it in Bahstahn. If it is so great up there why are you wanting to move down here? We are armed and dangerous, and all the women have terminal PMS. (most of them are armed too) :D

Bill, Waco Brother #1

RE: Thinking of moving to Tennessee, need input please
 

Thanks Bill, don't worry, I don't want to change anything there, just want to get acclimated and accepted. You won't hear me say how great it is here in MI!! :D

Sounds like there has been a big influx of Yanks moving your way. I'll keep a low profile. ;)

RE: Thinking of moving to Tennessee, need input please
 

I moved here involuntarily when I was five. Here's my protips for surviving out here:

1: Stay the hell away from Nashville. Their emissions laws are crap, they charge too damn much for gas, and in some parts of Metro you've got activity from all of the famous street gangs.
2: If you want a manual transmission you're going to have to look a while. On a plus, having an MT is more effective at keeping your car yours than the best Lojac has to offer.
3: Find a place out in the sticks. I'm about 20 miles east of Lebanon, itself 40 miles east of Nashville. My nearest human neighbors are a quarter mile away. There's nobody out here to ***** about nitros, there's nobody out here to care about what hour of the night you're screwing around with RCs, and there's enough cheap land out here for you to have your own private field! I have just over two acres myself, which once I remove some trees from will become a runway for my aircraft.
4: The summer is hot, humid, and full of pollen.
5: The winter is hot, humid, and full of pollen. No, seriously, I went to Christmas last year in jeans and a tee because it was 54F out.
6: Fall is hot, humid and full of pollen.
7: Spring is cold, wet, and full of snow.
8: If there's snow on the roads, call in. You will end up in a ditch sooner or later as nobody around here knows what to do. They all thing 4WD means they can skirt the laws of physics.
9: When it snows, great entertainment can be had by walking out to an interstate on ramp and watching the hilarity. Or, the top of a steep hill.
10: An excellent hobby shop I've found, one which deals in the entire spectrum of RC stuff, is Cookeville Raceway and Hobbies in Cookeville, TN.

RE: Thinking of moving to Tennessee, need input please
 

Where did you move from? Is there any available housing there? I'd suggest going back.
1. Nashville and the surrounding communities are a delightful place to live. Lots of things to do, lots of people to see. All is well unless you are anti-social. Don't worry about the gangs, they are too busy taking each other out.
2. Why on earth would any sane person want a manual transmission? They are a major pain in traffic.
3. Stay out of the Sticks. There be varmints and critters out there. Ticks are a problem too, all that plus there is absolutely nothing to do once the sun goes down.
4. There is Air conditioning.
5. There were 7 snow events last year. Christmas day was warm, but the 30th of November it was 26.
6. Fall is a very beautiful time of the year. Warm enough to enjoy events, cool enough to take a blanket to the High School Football games.
7. It can snow in late winter, but just remember that it is late into March before Spring arrives, and I've only seen one Spring Snow event in my life, and I'm nearly 70.
8. Don't worry about driving in the snow. Wait until everyone who moved here from somewhere else has left for work. Then you can pretty much go as you like. Our snow is wet and packs into ice. The Yankees who are used to driving in powder can't drive any better in this crap than anyone else, and they try to go too fast and wind up in the ditches. Natives do okay.
9. Don't get much for entertainment do you?
10. Best Hobby Shop in Tennessee is Dunphys in Smyrna.

Now. Just how long have you been a Tennessean?

RE: Thinking of moving to Tennessee, need input please
 

Arizona. If there was I would have returned already. I'm allergic to the pollen of every god-forsaken plant in this state, that alone is enough to make me want the desert back.


I was talking about downtown itself, not the surrounding communities. Those are nice so long as you don't mind a fair bit of congestion and smog.


Having a manual is the sole reason I can still afford to drive my truck these days. It makes the difference between 17MPG and 12MPG. With gas at 3.37/gallon out here that's a HUGE plus. Even if I absolutely hated driving stick the financial savings would be incentive enough to do so anyways. Even modern cars get a significant boost in city mileage by not having that slushy torque converter wasting fuel.

Not only that but they're more reliable, simpler, more fun, and as I mentioned they make a great anti-theft system.


I would like to ask why any sane, able-bodied person would want an automatic. Every single automatic I've ever had the displeasure of encountering has pissed me off in one way or another. Either they shift too soon and lug the engine, or they don't shift soon enough, or they won't kick down, or they shift about as smoothly as a first-timer on a non-synchro'd column shift, or they kick down for completely arbitrary reasons, and holy hell is the creep annoying. I hate having to hold the brakes on to keep my vehicle stationary on a level road. Sit still you piece of junk!

BLARHIUTEBJUY I hate automatics. The only people I feel should be allowed to own them are people who literally are physically incapable of operating a manual.

I disagree, and just yesterday I spent two hours hitting every red light in Lebanon doing errands. They are not a major pain in traffic.

Or, well, at least mine isn't. Maybe if the car in question has a clutch blatantly stolen from a tractor it might be, or if it's some anemic little front wheel drive thing with a motorcycle engine that needs four shifts before it can hit fourty five...

I'd take the odd possum or two over nosy, know-it-all neighbors who think they can tell me what I can and can't run. Besides, I have a 12 gauge solution to the varmint problem, works quite well.


Not that there is a varmint problem. There's uncut woods right next to my house and yet I haven't seen a single unwanted critter in the past seven or eight months. Maybe I've shot them all? Maybe they don't like the smell of my RC's exhaust? Only if you let your lawn get three miles high. I haven't had to pull a tick off myself or my pets in three years. Oh yes there is. You just have to use your imagination...and/or a bunch of flood lights.


So? Doesn't change the fact that it's hot, humid and sticky most of the year, and not everywhere you go is going to have good aircon.
Snow events? Come on man stop being politically correct. They're not snow events. It just snowed.

And yes, I'm well and truly aware it snowed seven times last year. I had a great amount of fun drifting my RCs in that snow. Doesn't change the fact that our winters are hot. It doesn't get properly winter cold until mid January to early February.

Places I would rather be than a high school football game include solitary at Leavenworth, the front lines in Iraq, and the US Senate...

Again with the snow events? Come on man...Also, I've seen quite a few spring snows. Past three years in a row there's been at least one morning in April where my yard was white.

I see it as a 50/50 split of natives and non-natives. That's why I advise simply not bothering at all. The only people who win when it snows here are the people who aren't even out there.

Funnily enough I've never put one in a ditch myself. Closest I've come to going off was when I was driving my mom's horrendously crappy minivan and damn near got stuck on a hill due to a combination of it being wrong wheel drive and having all-season tires.

I get plenty of entertainment.
I'll have to go searching for it once of these days.

Came here when I was five. I'm twenty one now. What's that got to do with anything anyways? One only needs to be here a few months to get a good idea of what's going on.

RE: Thinking of moving to Tennessee, need input please
 

Sorry to say, this is no longer true. PAC closed around the beginning of the year, and Mike and Maureen are now happily retired. Mike even finds time to fly now!

The shop was "replaced" by a new enterprise, "Family Hobbies". Whether or not it meets your needs is, of course, for the individual modeler to decide.

=================

To the OP

All I can speak for is down here in Rutherford county, SE of Nashville. We're a short drive (30 minutes or so up I-24) to hockey games, honky tonks, and truckloads of music. There are about half a dozen groups of RC enthusiasts and their fields within about 30-45 minutes or so, and it REMAINS pretty darn cheap to live down here.

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RE: Thinking of moving to Tennessee, need input please
 

Well, you guys battle it out.

I'm a transplant from Florida and quite honestly, I and my family like it here. Been here a little over 16 years and Nashville (not the city) is a great place to live. I'm about 15 miles outside Nashville, and right down the street from where Dunphy's place USED to be. They aren't there anymore unfortunately for the local RC community. Can't say I blame them.

And like G said, there is a new store............your mileage may vary.

Over all, it's a great state to live, work and play. Like any where else, you'll find bad spots but the good far out weighs the bad in my book.

Oh, I will give you the fact that driving here is certainly an "experience"!

RE: Thinking of moving to Tennessee, need input please
 

Sorry I have not seen your post before. It "....shore 'nuff ain't Tennessee, Ol Pard..." but it does have 12 months good fishing, hunting, and RCing with numerous flying sites all around this area.

Houston, TX area is the fastest growing city in the US or so sayth one news provider several months ago. On the east side, north side and west side, there are numerous housing developments of many size, type, and pricing. I live on the North-North-east area in a small town but some 7 miles out, not a sub-division. Real Est. Taxes are low compared to most other areas. There is no state income tax in TX, but sales tax is rather steep. OTOH, all real food stuffs are not sales-taxed.

Now here comes the sales pitch. I own four 10+/- acre lots that can be purchased, roughly 300 ft wide, and 1500 ft long with the long East and West while N & S is 300 Ft. On the east side is an improved county road running N-S. On the west side is 300 ft. frontage on the fine 50 acres Jetero RC Club, Inc RC field where CL is allowed.

100x600' beautifully maintained grass runway, with much parking, indoor toliet facilities running water, some 5000 sq. ft shelter over concrete including an air-conditioned kitchen, and general purpose room. Full electrics throughout for battery charging, etc.
Check it out on the web site, www.jetero.com. Be sure to see the latest picture as all the structure has been replaced in the past 3 years, Thanks to "IKE" when it came blowing through. Local homes were not hurt but our shelter was. I will finance with a 20% down, Current price: $5000.00 per acre. You will need a water well and septic should you wish to build there.

Dayton TX schools are about 5 miles away to East. Lake Houston about same to West. Straight good highway through, now being in build for 4 lanes. West of the Lake consists of many miles of home additions, shopping, and about everything one could want.
Jetero is 17 miles from Humble, TX center. I use to live right there beside a huge Mall. I was about 15 minutes from the IAH airport terminals as I was a commuter to ORD back then.

You're within less than two hours even in traffic from the Galveston complex on the sea-shore, 4 hours to Sea World and all sorts of vacation stuff in and around San Antonio. The Operations Manager at SW is a very good friend of mine and an Uncle to one of my grandsons.

Summers are HOT. Been a different year as we had a very cold winter, lots of nights down to high 20s and days in the mid '50s to low '60s. Temps running some 2-5 degrees above normal so far this summer.

There are a numerous flying sites around Houston, mostly typical club style, but there are at least 3 other facilities owned by the clubs. There is a super county owned facility on the west side. LONG WIDE HARD SURFACE and all indoor facilities. Have to have AMA to fly there, but do not have to belong to the managing club.

Are you asleep YET? :D

RE: Thinking of moving to Tennessee, need input please
 

Transplant from where in Florida?

Bill, Waco Brother #1

RE: Thinking of moving to Tennessee, need input please
 

You guys are AWESOME!! I knew I could count on some heated debate and some good information. And Bill, you still have not detered me from being your neighbor!! :D
I have no interest in big cities, want no part of crime and gangs, etc.
I have yet to meet a winter storm I haven't been able to drive in, but I sure do like the idea of only a foot per year of snow!! I won't miss my 8 HP two-stage snow blower and shovel.
BTW, I also like stick shift and a V-8!! I wish gas here was as cheap as stated on other post. I think I just paid 4.00/gal, and it's more expensive if you pay with credit card!

RE: Thinking of moving to Tennessee, need input please
 

Mostly the Orlando area. Also lived in Lakeland, Kissimmee and Gainesville.

RE: Thinking of moving to Tennessee, need input please
 

We just moved back from Leesburg. Right on Lake Harris. Palmora Park.

Bill, Waco Brother #1

RE: Thinking of moving to Tennessee, need input please
 

Just one minor comment about automatic transmissions. And, yeah, I know this isn't England or Europe, but go over there and try to rent an automatic transmission car and see how much it costs!! My company was sending me over there (England) about every other month so I had to get used to manual.. on the wrong side.. right quick. They would not pay the extra for me to rent an automatic.

I sort of wish I could have gotten manual when I recently bought my Volvo, but, as stated, they are almost non-existent, or not even available in a Volvo.

CGr.

RE: Thinking of moving to Tennessee, need input please
 

Yeah, both Dunphy and G have mentioned you Bill. No worries........nothing terrible. We'll all have to hook up sometime.

Been to Leesburg a number of times but mostly passing through. Never got to spend much time there.

Paul

RE: Thinking of moving to Tennessee, need input please
 

Bill's been spending too much time of late funding my paycheck. *lol*

I concur, however...Bill, we need to get you out this way and all head down to Murfreesboro for an afternoon. My son can bring his trainer and buddy box you if you think you might be rusty. http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/js/f...ey/msn/lol.gif<br type="_moz" />

RE: Thinking of moving to Tennessee, need input please
 

I got your rusty..........

Bill, Waco Brother #1