What is it like living in a small isolated town?

Oh Yea.... wrote:

No, but partying with your friends in SODO is - like I'm doing right now! Hell Yea!

Oh yeah - it sure seems like your party is a blast... considering you are on your phone/computer posting on LetsRun.

I currently drive 2hrs round trip to work in rural PA. NOT FUN. I spend 10+hours a week driving...that's time I could be running. Its very frustrating, but I got the job after the house & husband, so my options are currently limited. Scheduling things like Dr.s appts and getting errands done is a nightmare because nothing is open at home when I leave at 7am or return at 7pm, and its tough to get out of the office to get these things done over lunch.

As of a couple years ago, Rochester did not have much of a downtown at all. Dismal. Everyone has moved out to the suburbs. I'm not familiar with the burbs there though. My personal inclination is Buffalo over Rochester; at least with Buffalo you can get to the Canadian side of the falls quickly.

I think it's worth noting that growing up in a small town and occasionally returning is very different from moving to a new town by yourself. An hour commute out of Rochester is a bit much, though.

JohnCougarMellencamp wrote:

A phenomenon that repeatedly occurs in my home town is that people move there to retire-and then get the urge to run for school board, city council or whatever after a year or two. They attempt to turn our little slice of heaven into a miniature version of whatever urban shIthole they crawled out of. It almost always ends badly-often with the offending party selling their house and writing a pissy little letter to the local newspaper. 3 out of 5 of these have been retired air force officers. So, if you are a retired air force officer, do yourself and the town a favor and don't run for office.

Dude, I grew up in a town of 5,000 people 50 miles north of st. louis, and the exact same thing happened. Some retired Naval officer moved in and was mayor within a year. Dafuq? He's since resigned his position after engineering a huge scheme of corruption.

Small city of about 60,000, long winters, 5 hour drive to the big city ...

Lots of positives - 10 minute walk to work, 15 minutes to running/x-c skiing trails, good sense of community, good place to raise kids

Negatives - rednecks, tough to travel to/from, not a large dating pool, did I mention the long winters

After 20+ years, I don't think I could live in a city of million ever again. You waste too much time in traffic. Life is too short.

Trevor Owens Jones wrote a one page story about small towns

http://www.nypl.org/blog/2011/05/09/southern-gothic-readers-guide

Since the OP is asking for a thru-my-eyes view of small towns I would suspect the cited books would go in just that direction.

I live in NYC which is a bunch of smalltownsblurred together but creates a different dynamic for isolated towns.

I wintered over on FireIsland almost fifty years ago. Under 150 folks during the week. Rampant social incest and abject alcoholism are a big part of the 'rock fever' experience.

Probably about 10 years ago-Garrison Keillor, the guy who does "Prairie Home Companion" on NPR wrote a story in the National Geographic magazine about when he moved to a small town in Minnesota because he was a struggling young writer, and wanted a cheap place to live. He details how alone and detached he felt-even though people would talk to him-he felt like an exhibit in a zoo. Since he didn't make many true friends in that environment-he projected what he thought the various characters in town would be like if he actually knew beyond the superficial level he did know them. Many of the characters he uses on Prairie Home Companion are rooted in that experience. Quite a read.

South of Rochester looks hilly on google maps. Live there & use the money you save to buy a nice bike. Biking in hilly terrain is a blast!

I would NOT commute to the small town. I think it sends a bad message to your employer-and any of your coworkers and friends you might make in the small town. My advice would be if you take the job-embrace the community. Make it clear you are there for more than a paycheck. There's no way you will not be viewed as an outsider-but if you commute from the city-you'll be viewed as a carpetbagger-ready to jump at any opportunity that arises in the city. Give it a year or two. You might like it. If you commute-you will be cheating yourself out of an increasingly more rare life experience.Two paths diverged in the woods. I took the one less travelled by. And that has made all the difference.

KTO wrote:

I currently drive 2hrs round trip to work in rural PA. NOT FUN. I spend 10+hours a week driving...that's time I could be running. Its very frustrating, but I got the job after the house & husband, so my options are currently limited. Scheduling things like Dr.s appts and getting errands done is a nightmare because nothing is open at home when I leave at 7am or return at 7pm, and its tough to get out of the office to get these things done over lunch.

As of a couple years ago, Rochester did not have much of a downtown at all. Dismal. Everyone has moved out to the suburbs. I'm not familiar with the burbs there though. My personal inclination is Buffalo over Rochester; at least with Buffalo you can get to the Canadian side of the falls quickly.

It is. I bike there all the time. Some really challenging terrain. Some of the best cycling in the north east, dare I say.

podcast wrote:

South of Rochester looks hilly on google maps. Live there & use the money you save to buy a nice bike. Biking in hilly terrain is a blast!

Crested Butte, Colorado- great, Crapville, Nebraska- not so great.

I live in a town of 1000 people and the one thing I have to say is that if you're social then everybody will know you and you'll know everybody too. This can be good and bad. In my town there usually is not a whole lot to do. But the small town community is usually a lot safer and more comfortable.

If you're a very social person then a small town is probably not for you.

www.bodyathleticsblog.com

You could always pick up squirrel hunting... they even have prizes.

http://www.13wham.com/news/local/story/Squirrel-Hunting-Creates-Controversy-In-Holley/2qMJYbWAxkyUb7nTA6aYjQ.cspx

Here's a new Smithsonian article about what living in a small isolated town is really like:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html

Imagine the trail-running possibilities!

I went to college in a town of about 2500. It wasn't really isolated though. Small city 10 miles away and medium size city 25 miles away. So it was just a short drive to movie theaters, the mall, a running store. The big draw for me to go there was the amazing trails within 30 miles of campus.

There was a state park with a mountain to run up - pretty steep, a hilly loop around a lake and some more hilly trails that was in another small town and rarely used outside summer. Nearby was a rail trail that went 30 some miles with gorgeous views of the mountains and some small towns the whole time. It was rarely busy besides the first couple miles around the trailheads. There was also another park with a 5 mile loop about 30 miles away the other direction and a huge park with well over 30 miles of trails about 45 miles away.

results may vary

The description of the weather in the Siberia article is similar to that of upstate NY as well. Have fun running in the barren, isolated region between Rochester and Buffalo.

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. I'll say this, I am pretty well traveled and have lived in mid sized towns to large cities in the US and in Europe. I did college in the US and Russia and after undergrad, I like many, had student loan debt. My first job out of college took me to Bumblefcuk in the Far North. I have never really experienced culture shock despite the traveling I had done, but I sure as hell did when I arrived from a large city where there was plenty for a liberal 21 yr old to do and got off the plane to a small town where there were Bob Dole campaign signs on the trees!

My job paid very well and I was making $ hand over foot after a couple yrs, but I was lonely and bored out of my fcuking mind! No current concerts ever passed through Bumblefcuk, and there was just nearly nada for entertainment. The sidewalks rolled up by 6pm even in the summer when we had daylight into the wee hours. No, I was not into sh!tty country music and square dancing,knitting, and other boring hobbies that half the population seemed to love. I wasn't into drinking myself stupid and doing meth which also seemed to be popular activities. I did fish and do outdoor stuff and had a few friends who would join me on a trail run then go fishin' or berry pickin'. I'm not a skier but an avid snowboarder, trouble was most of my coworkers were old enough to be my parents so I usually went boarding alone. Social life- just about dead on the vine at an age it should not be!

I was stuck though, because that's where my job happened to be for 7 yrs. The alternative-unemployment. Dating- forget it. Most of the men were pot bellied, smelly, bearded to their buttcracks, and not highly educated. My parents came to visit and understood why I wasn't dating. I was just incredibly turned off. yes, the odds were good , but the goods were way too odd!

We had nowhere to shop, that was done mostly online. The nearest "mall" was 357 miles south.

Honest to Christ, the running kept me sane. There wasn't much else to do so that's what I did along with the snowshoeing. The cold I got used to as I tolerate cold pretty well but the damn darkness in the winter wasn't too fun. Those things, I could get used to, but the isolation and living like a hermit in my 20s was NOT pleasant. I also had time off in the summer and I just bailed usually back to Eastern Europe and Russia where I'd do grad school sessions. At least there I could kind of have a life.

After 7 yrs, I finally did get to transfer to the civilized part of the state 357 miles south and loved it. That's where I will eventually resettle. The city was not too big not too small and there was plenty to do. Population was just under 400k as opposed to under 50k in Bumblefcuk. Problem was that I was so burnt out from the 7 yrs I feel to this day were flushed down the toilet, I took leave from said job and headed back across the pond for a while.

Moral of the story- do NOT EVER move anywhere you have not visited and seen first! My town was the end of the paved road system in the United States.