Charlottesville had the best fried chicken we had on the whole trip. Yes this is a factor in deciding where to move. In the end however, it wasn’t enough.
There’s a carousel in the middle of town of which my kids could not get enough. In fact the whole downtown is friggin great.
The children’s museum there is really fantastic and you should check it out if you’re into that kind of thing.
This post was drafted 7 years ago and mentioned the library which must be incredible to have ended up in the outline in the draft but alas, I don’t remember much about it.
One thing I didn’t know about Virginia is that they treat their cider like other regions treat wine.
Cider in Virginia is served at the orchard from wine bottles and you can get it as dry as you like it. Not at all like the garbage you buy in a can. One of our favorites was Albemarle Cider and their “vintage” apples. Just outstanding. Fantastic.
Another favorite was Carter Mountain Orchard. It is GORGEOUS. They serve wine slushies – yes I said wine slushies. Did we drink our way across the country? Perhaps.
There was an absolutely gorgeous red sky sunset that night over the orchard.
At the time that we visited we thought it was one of the friendliest cities we’d ever been to, and at the time it was, and I’m sure it is in fact friendly. But the truth is that the further we got from Massachusetts the more we realized that, in fact, New England is full of assholes and not friendly at all.
I say this as someone who does still love New England from afar. Which is exactly the place from which I want to love it.
From the time I got out of high school I probably added no more than three people I’d call friends and with whom I am still in touch- that’s over nearly twenty years.
Contrast that with Bend Oregon where I’ve quickly grown to have more friends than time to spend with them. The northeast is closed and stuffy and if you can’t talk about that play that was made in that game last night then you’re useless in conversation.
The first question anyone asks you when you meet in Boston (I use the term for the 40 mile radius around it) is “where’d you go to school?”
Fuck U, I graduated with honors you fucking fuck.
It is amazing how many people I’ve met in the West who’ve never been punched in the face. At least I’ve got that going for me.
But I digress, I was talking about Charlottesville.
You cannot ski there ⛷.
The Charlottesville farmer’s market was among the very best in the country. Others competing for the top spot, at the time, were Burlington VT, Ojai CA and if I remember correctly Asheville NC – the eventual runner up to Bend in terms if a final destination.
The food is amazing, the people were wonderful, the mountain biking was fantastic, the booze was top notch.
One of the other criteria I had for relocation was that the place had to have a decent tech business community. Charlottesville did not have that at the time.
I remember going to some super awkward startup meetup affiliated with the university where I was literally the only person in the room with an online business.
Oh well.
Like I said, you can’t ski there so…
I also have a note here to write about “errands-hair oil” perhaps my wife remembers. I’ll update this post if so.
