Oddbean new post about login | logout wyoming and montana were on my list of places to drive through this summer. I'm sure they are beautiful... but maybe you should also consider Texas. I'm not even from Texas, but it really has grown on me. Texas has its own electrical grid, and it's close enough to Colorado that you could drive overnight up there. There are 2 hub airports for United and American Airlines plus we are a short bus ride/drive from Monterrey, Mexico with all of the Mexico destinations. There's the ports along the Gulf Coast, and fertile gulf coastal plains. and then there is the Hill Country with it's cold fresh water springs in the middle of the state. Beautiful deserts to the west, and acres and acres of plateau farmland to the Northwest. It's also very windy here, tons of windmills everywhere. It's just a hot wind from June to October, but you could drive up to New Mexico or Colorado for a break. Maybe put Texas in your evaluation matrix...
amarillo maybe... dalhart... northwest texas is a desert too, but it's got altitude, and yeah i'm totally down with the attitude of the place, especially distant from Austin and Houston i'm fine with living in a dry place, really, just needs to be high and there needs to be accessible water that would remain accessible even without electricity... in Australia it is very common in the dry country west of the Great Dividing Range to see these iron windmill things that pump water up out of the ground, i almost forgot that so, gonna chalk that one up on the list as well... wyoming has low land prices, texas has good culture, colorado maybe not a good option
If you're considering other places, there are probably quite a few areas in Nevada that foot the bill. Other benefit is no state income tax, no corporate income tax and no taxes on corporate shares. There are a ton of small cities in different climates, too. You can go from dry desert in Vegas to mountain climate in Mount Charleston in 30 minutes, for example. https://www.nevada-demographics.com/cities_by_population
hmm i didn't know there was mountains in nevada but now i do... it rather seems to be that aside from colorado, there's a lot of good parts around them mountains
if i have options then probably the one i'd pick out of them all is the one where owning guns is relatively easy... i'm not so much interested in the marauding hordes or invading scenario, honestly i doubt the modern economy can really pay for a serious war other than the one they are kicking off in eastern europe... no, it's because bullets keep working for decades, don't need power, and can net you food out in the wild, and maybe once in a while scare off some dumbasses trying to rip something off... plus also lots of fun, and something i've hankered for since i was in my mid 20s... australia is fucked up about guns, it's one of the biggest red flags, i mean literally, for any place, bad gun laws, bad place to live
Nevada is soooo dry. Unless it's Reno/ Tahoe area. In that case it's a very nice place. Utah is also horribly dry. The good thing about Texas is that it sets your expectations so low that when you travel anywhere else on vacation, you will think it's beautiful
Dry is a feature to me. I hate humidity (grew up in the Midwest) and also have zero allergies living here.
yeah, i don't mind the dry, wet you have mosquitoes and fungus and shit, parasites everywhere and yeah i'm looking at utah also, that whole region is now on my radar... i think i need to get there, set up in a little town somewhere, fiat mine and stack sats and get my papers and a motorcycle or car or something and do a lot of driving around to see... there is green patches everywhere, around the edges of mountains, and the dry places are still good too, a bit easier, i really think it's something that has to be seen before you know where you are gonna plop yourself the more i think about it the more it seems obvious this is where i'm heading... madeira is nice but i would love to live in a country where english is the spoken language, and somewhere that i can easily get into guns is a huge plus, also, access to beef... that's another big one... the entire midwest is beef country, above all else
that whole region is great for road trips in the winter. i never liked road trips before driving in New Mexico, AZ, Colorado. and to lesser extent Nevada/Utah. the vistas are never ending. Colorado especially has a different biome/landscape every 1 hour that you drive. New Mexico has a special place in my heart although it's poor compared to the rest. I drove from Tahoe to Reno to Salt Lake City, Reno to Salt Lake was least favorite part of the region. It got really interesting again south of Salt Lake CIty in Bryce Canyon.
I just happen to own the largest motorcycle dealership in Wyoming.
wellll... i want something that can do the highway fine but can also go offroad, it doesn't need to be powerful, so long as it can actually move at some velocity on a steep slope when it comes time for me to make a move, i'm sure that i could be assisted by you
My husband really likes the Kawasaki KLR650. It is good on-road and off-road and has a very large gas tank, which is handy when it is a long ways to the nearest gas station. The only pseudo-problem with it is that it is a little on the tall side. It is taller than I am comfortable with, so if you have short legs, you might prefer something else.
KLR is a very small tractor disguised as a motorcycle
i'm not really in so much of a hurry to need 650, honestly, a 250 4 stroke is enough for me, i had problems with a kinda heavy 50cc and hills but i don't think a 250 is gonna totally choke on most of the hills i might encounter, and worst case, fuck it, turn around, maybe there's a more gentle slope to the same destination, or not i'm not young enough anymore to care, and wasn't that excited about going fast, every time i go fast i have flashbacks of every time i've slid on gravel and tarmac in my life and i am fine to go a bit slower... just as long as it stops fast and isn't too heavy i'll keep my eyes open
i recently had a tumble on some steep concrete "road" near me a few weeks back and i'm just glad i didn't break any bones but it took 6 weeks for everything to get back to normal, i just don't feel the need to push those kinds of boundaries at all, it was never in my temperament, and whenever i got possessed of such stupidity it tended to end up being regrettable
Wyoming is Constitutional carry, so no permit to carry a gun as long as you are not a felon. (I'm not 100% on the rules for non-citizens)
honestly, i'm loving the altitude and the sparse population alone, having good gun laws is weighing heavy towards wyoming as well... i was uncertain because i knew texas was good but then i looked at texas high altitude terrain and it's just as dry and shitty, and colorado is shitty for guns, and afaik nevada is shitty for guns as is new mexico... so it's now firmly in the lead for my choice, as is Rock Springs and Green River i'm just gonna try and pick out a reasonable spot to land in and set up, and get myself my legits and a vehicle (probably a motorcycle) and roam a lot to see what is around and follow my heart