New Hampshire Impressions
Now I’ll go through my impressions of New Hampshire and New England in general.
The scenery was beautiful, even at the juncture between winter/spring, what the locals call ‘mud season’. Coming back to Texas after a week up there was a bit of a shock. We got used to the varying shades of gray and browns everywhere. White snow, gray sky, brown tree trunks, dark mud were what we got used to seeing. We got back and the green of a Texas spring nearly hurt our eyes the first day.
New Englanders are friendly once you get out into the countryside. Bostoners were rude and pushy and I couldn’t wait to get out of that town. We had a great time spending a few hours with the maple farming people outside Concord. Manchester, NH didn’t impress me and I don’t think I could live there. It’s just seemed like Austin North. Concord was kind of the same way. It was okay but seemed a little long in the tooth. Everything north of Concord was very nice. The same with the western part of the state. The area around Hanover/Lebanon, where Dartmouth is, seemed ideal. There semeed to be a small but thriving high-tech market there. There and in Keene, about 40 miles south, are where I’m concentrating my job search. Talking with a small business owner in Keene my wife said we were scouting a possible move and said we’d visited Portsmouth. He started laughing before she could finish the sentence. Even New Hampshrites know that Portsmouth is way overpriced. It’s beautiful but there’s no way anyone can afford to live there.
Housing. Not cheap. At least near the bigger towns, especially Portsmouth, Manchester, Nashua, and Concord. Keene and Lebanon were getting reasonable, especially if you’re willing to drive 20-30 minutes into town.
Cost of living. Taxes are low to non-existent, except property taxes. Those are high, very high. I guess it all comes out to a wash. Payrates seem a bit low, lower than around Austin for sure. That makes a move tough. To move, we need a house that costs about what ours does and a job that pays like mine currently. Living on one income can be a very close balancing act in these days of rising costs and even slower rising pay.
Recreation. More that you can imagine. Winter sports of every type. Skiing, snowboarding, cross country skiing, ice fishing, snowshoeing and more. Summer; hiking, mountain biking, boating, fishing, river running. and more. It’s got Texas beat to all hell and back in the recreation department. One of my biggest complaints about Texas is it’s lack of public land. Yeah, there’s state parks here and there but in how many places can you start at a trailhead and hike for two days without having to double back on yourself.
All told, we’ll do the move if I can find a good paying position in a company in one of the outlying areas of the state, ideally near Keene/Lebanon or north of the Notches. Those are few and far between but not impossible to find.