#1 Exorbitant cost of living. If we had moved here a decade ago, it might have been somewhat reasonable, but moving here at the peak of the real estate insanity . . . not good. Southern California is expensive in general, but you can imagine the cost of a beautiful, quiet, safe, small town with it's own school district (which is always at the top in the state) that is just minutes away from both downtown and Hollywood. That is really what we are paying for. Not just a community like this (because there are plenty of those all over this country), but a community like this with such close proximity to L.A. and Hollywood. We don't need either L.A. or Hollywood for Brandon's work, so it doesn't make sense for us to keep parting with our hard earned money. Not after nine years of sacrifice and toil. (Plus four here.) And while a bigger home for MUCH less money is attractive, our main motive is to be as debt free as possible and be able to save, save, save for emergencies, our children, our retirement, you name it. No amount of great weather and beautiful trees can help us feel at peace about our inability to prepare for the future in the way we would like.
#2 Earthquakes, fires, mudslides. I know, anywhere you go there is something. In Iowa it was tornados and flooding, in Utah it will be . . . what natural disasters do they have there? Just checked wikipedia and they had one tornado in Salt Lake in 1999 and they do get wildfires, but they are pretty much restricted to wilderness areas. Not bad. (Isn't there a fault line running through Salt Lake and Utah counties? That would be funny. Not really.) I think if you are from here, earthquakes are no big deal. (That's how I feel about tornados, but Brandon thinks tornados are worse since you sit in your basement and watch the path of the tornado by doppler radar on TV as it edges ever closer to your house. At least you don't know when the earthquake is coming, so you don't worry about it - this is according to Brandon.) But earthquakes really bug me. Not the little ones, but the potential for "THE BIG ONE". I really do hate the thought of being here for that, and they keep promising it is coming sometime in the next 20-30 years. I am so nuts about it that several times a week I wake up in the middle of the night in a panic simply because Brandon rolled over in bed. I know, it's dumb, but I can't really imagine what it would be like here if there were a major earthquake. With all these people, and only one major freeway to get out if we needed to. You can't even get out of here on a Friday night because of all the traffic.
#3 The population. It's way too crowded here. And many of the people outside our little city walls are obnoxious to live next to and interact with whenever you leave these little city walls. The diverse cultures in our town all seem to work well together and are on the same page. Not so in neighboring communities. There are certain ethnic groups that keep to themselves, don't want to assimilate, yet desire all the benefits that the state gov't is way too excited to dish out to them. It's obnoxious. Just last night we went to dinner at The Americana in Glendale - supposedly "the place to be"and truly a visually beautiful place - but the people there were so obnoxious and it was so crowded. It just made everything seem so hollow and not at all enjoyable! Brandon deals with many of these populations at work and it drives him nuts. He has really loved working with his dad, but he can't tolerate working with these people and getting ripped off by them for the next 30 years of practicing medicine - especially the way things are going with Obamacare. Enough said.
#4 Fall here is a drag. Fall used to be my favorite season, winter the least. Moving to Utah, that will reverse back in place. I'm trying not to focus on losing the gorgeous California winters, but I have to say every fall we have been here I've missed that back-to-school/football season smell, the leaves changing in September and October, chilly Halloweens -I LOVE fall, and fall here is a hot drag.
#5 - #10 (I'm tired and everything else kind of rolls into one) State instability/Political kooks in Sacramento screwing everything up/Deteriorating culture/Insane freeway traffic/Illegal aliens/Being a target for terrorists/Increased lack of water and other natural resources/I'm going to bed . . .
Those are the EXACT reasons we hope to be gone soon, too. Soon for us, however, probably means another three or four years. Dang it. I'm a little jealous of you, Allyson.
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