Winter here is absolute shit. They DO NOT maintain the roads. When it snows, it doesnt last very long, but then we get black ice, and alot of our roads here are heavily wooded making that worse. It takes a few car wrecks for any of the surrounding counties to be like "oh shit we should do something to the roads..." Oh and employers here are SUPER unforgiving about the winter here. Don't even get caught talking about it when you finally get to work in a panic. Everyone at your work hates you if you show the slightest disinterest in driving to work in the snow. I just dont get it. Roads are shit but you're expected to risk your life for less than $20/hr (if you make more, im proud of you lol)

Thank you for the link! Theres alot there!

Hearing that is some great reassurance! Hopefully I'll be able to experience a true "4 Seasons" like I've heard of. Here... its shorter spring and weird ass winters that wanna act like spring but still holding on to fall so bad hahah.

We recently applied to a condo in Vernon, but we are pretty open to looking around the Hartford area. Bf's going to go back to school for his BA in engineering and some of the schools he's looking at are in that area. He used to work in Groton at the base there. Originally, we were looking to rent a house on the water, but we thought being closer to school is a safer idea. We are ok with a 30 min commute for school.

Thats a good way to look at it, and I definitely want to visit Maine! Bf had a diving job out there once and said he liked it there. Im excited to make my way around.

I am definitely up to exploring outside my actual city I'll be residing! Long distance driving doesn't bother me (I consider long distance 3 hours or more, personally) Driving here is absolute madness, complete insanity... Literally risking my life every time I get in the car with the OTHER drivers here. But no, some places can be boring. And people can be boring too. I don't think I'll experience close to "boring" once I move. So far, a lot of my boxes are getting checked for what the area has to offer.

Thank you so much for your response! I'm also excited to be moving out there, because I've been told there are some similarities to Washington, with the new bonuses I'm about to experience. I'll admit I'm mostly excited for the food. Someone I worked with was born and raised from NH, they said a big difference here with cooking is because we have hard water up here. thought it was weird but good to know.

I will happily pick a pizza tribe. Pizza is one of the foods that isn't ruined for me if I have it too often. Some would say I'm committing sin with my pizza choices, but my bf has luckily gotten me to find a way to enjoy thin crust so I will be prepared for that.

And small business/photography: my hometown used to be 7,000 people until others found it to be awesome, too. I am a freelance photographer of 15 years and shooting in any areas from weddings, family portraiture, senior glam, Quinceanera, boudoir, sports/in-motion. I'd really like to get into some other areas of taking photos that I've had a small taste of already to build on those as well.

About the Seattle Freeze, it's totally there hahah! I'm from the west side so I'd have to catch a ferry or drive down n around to get to Seattle. Very, very different attitudes. It's sad how Seattle is dying, and the cold attitudes are probably from that. I'm even a little bitter from it even though I lived about an hour and a half away. In high school, my friends and I would hop in my '05 Civic and split the parking cost, then walk on the ferry free. Walk all around wherever we wanted and no worry about our persons. Then we'd go home when we got bored. Can't really do that without being even a little sketched out by your surroundings now.