That's about where we stand. This was a good place to raise the kids, and the sprawl didn't catch up until they were grown. My youngest moved out a couple of years ago. I'm planning to retire in a few months, so there won't be much anchoring us here. It might be two or three years before we move, but when we do we'll try to get a few acres in horse country.
I have a Downs daughter who lives in an independent living facility in Lakeland, so we'll want to stay within about a 2 hour drive of her just in case some need arises. Likely we'll look for something west of Ocala.
For us it's far enough out into the future that I don't feel like we need to think about it too much. The situation will dictate what we decide to do. Maybe we'll have grandkids we want to be closer to, maybe our kids will raise our grandkids someplace we have no desire to live and we'll just ride our motorcycles or drive our RV out to visit them. Maybe we'll go full-timing in an RV or maybe we'll live on a boat. Lots of things on the bucket list that are unlikely to happen before retirement that are worth looking forward to and would be feasible then, and the acres ma become less something we want to deal with. Our maybe the kids will stay in the KC area and want to build houses on other parts of the property - with 11 acres we've got room for more than one.
Lots of options. Personally, I would really like to live on a boat for at least some period of time around retirement, but my various road-going vehicular projects aren't conducive to that.
Well, lonely rural areas are good places for drug deals and to dump a body occasionally. There have been a few murders over the years, and once the cops found a human torso (
just the torso) in a nearby pasture. Then there was the time three men held up a convenience store and murdered the clerk, then abandoned their vehicle and took off on foot through the groves. They tried to hide in a neighbor's barn that night and we had a helicopter circling with a search light while sheriff's deputies searched the area at 1 a.m.
But at least out here, if the deputies have to start shooting at someone they don't mind too much if we join in.
A few months back, closer to the beginning of this whole thing, our next door neighbor (who I'd not met before - out here that's not uncommon) came walking down the driveway. You have to understand, that's about a half mile walk total, so you really just don't see people walking down the road here. Ever. Started rambling on about how some Russian hackers had taken over his phone, computer, and truck, and he had to tell people but because they'd taken over his truck he had to walk instead of drive.
The fellow looked to be retirement age, probably somewhere in the 65-70 realm. It was hard to tell whether he was on meth or just senile.
Around that time I saw a couple of older folks that looked to be from the row of cheap houses at the end of the street walking north towards said odd fellow's house, and saw the cops pull over someone outside of my house (with 3 cop cars, no less), which again, very odd and first time in the 5 years we've lived here. Occasionally a police car or fire truck has raced by with the sirens on but that's rare.
Who knows.
Our town is dying (at least it feels that way) so I guess in 15 years I will be in the country instead of in the city!
I'm not sure if "like" is the right reaction, but Xenforo hasn't caught up with Facebook in terms of reactions.
But that poses an interesting question. I don't think I've seen anyplace where a shrinking urban landscape actually gets converted back into the country, even though it would theoretically be possible.
