My lovely wife of 33yrs...

was just offered a fantastic opportunity to wind down her career (I am already retired)she has, at least, another 10yrs to contribute before she calls it quits. My question is...can a lifetime native of Vermont survive his golden years in the State of South Carolina ?? Going from Jeffords, Leahy and Bernie to DeMint and Graham could be too taxing for my heart!! God, I love her dearly, but do ya think she might be trying to kill me?? I've already had 2 heart attacks!!

Seriously, I am beginning to hate looooooong Vt winters and Myrtle Beach looks sooooo good. I have checked real estate prices in the area and they also look mighty good so I need to know from fellow DU'ers in SC...why should we stay here in the frigid Northeast?? Keep in mind that heating oil is expected to be around 2.40 a gallon this heating season.

And I love sayin "Y'ALL !!!

other than that, SC isn't bad.

if y'all lak choon terbaky an folks wi no teef

You'll be fine. It's a big change though!

But I must admit...I have false uppers!!!

:thumbsup:

I grew up in Alabama during the George Wallace days. That did not bother me as my friends were liberal. What I never did get used to however, was and is the humidity. If you can adjust to that, you'll do great.

Don't let the local politics get you down too much. You have DU, online access to newspapers, and such. And most of the people, however conservative, will be nice and friendly. At least, that's the way it was and is in Alabama.

I left the South at age 26. I'm now in Denver. Summers are wonderful--no humidity!

Murrell's Inlet that I have always liked. People just ride around on golf carts and grow pretty flowers!

Rent a car and drive around. While you are there check out the prices on homes. You might want to rent your house out in VT before making a final move to SC.

Best of luck.

You get seasons, but (except for summer) MUCH milder.
Mountains AND the beach.
Murrell's Inlet is nice.
Weird barbecue, but pretty good.
Alabama has "proper" barbecue.

The advice to visit during the off season is well taken. My brother moved there and lasted less than a year. Now they are in Florida which they hate politically, but like for arthritis etc.

i have been trying to get my 74 year old dad to relocate from philadelphia to the south, he must be a vampire since he still lives within 5 miles of where he was born.

myrtle is overcrowded but land, compared to up north is still a steal. head further south on the coast if you can, i love it at edisto beach.

one thing though, that which you call "culture" up north is found in some abundance in only a few places with bigger populations, columbia, greenville/spartanburg, charleston.

you get the ocean nearby if myrtle is where you relocate and that is great.

but oh the summers, its been plus 90F each day here for over a month. you will have from mid september to mid may where the weather is enjoyable

to be somewhere in Lexington County. But it would be nice to be close to Myrtle Beach.

Lake Murray..is it where the locals go?? We are on the shores of Lake Champlain and love fresh water. I am getting more excited with every post about the merits of such a move. ASnyone in SC wanna trade for a place in the Green Mtns of Vermont??

The well-to-do build their retirement houses there, or their summer houses. It's perfectly nice, though it's been drawn down for the past several years and may be for the next several years. The Lake Murray Dam is earthen, and it has occurred to folks that maybe having a huge lake upstream from the city that's held back by nothing but dirt might not be the best idea. Thus there's a massive project going on to shore it up.

The low water might depress housing prices for you; you may be able to get a steal if you're willing to put up with a dock you can't use for a year or so.

for fishing and water skiing, at least when I was a kid. It's a fake lake, flooded by the US Army Corps of Engineers. Several small towns dot the lake floor. Do not compare Lake Champlain with Lake Murray. I did used to catch many, many Crappie and Bluegill there as a kid. Still, I imagine Lake Champlain to be a lovely azure and glacial affair, nestled in the lovely mountains of your fair state. It is, as I understand it, quite large, much larger than Lake Murray.

According to the Lake Murray website, the current water temperature is 90 degrees. That's not refreshing, it's practically boiling. As I recall, the lake also has a bit of an algae problem.

My family has been in SC since 1688. My mother lives in a trailer in Lexington County, the rest of my family lives in Columbia.

First off, Columbia is the only southern city--or state capitol--I can think of that has not grown in 30 years. It was about 100,000 souls when I was a kid, it's that size now. Why? Because it sucks (no offense to anyone intended).

Something positive about Columbia? The Riverbanks Zoo is not half bad. A

The state has been run by Republicans (almost exclusively) for a generation now, so they have run it into the ground. They have made sure it has undergone a process I call "Mississippification," which is to attempt to tie the State of Mississippi for every negative social welfare indicator possible. The zoning laws are either repressive, or nonexistent. The schools are horrible.

I call Columbia "The Armpit of Hell." Every summer, several recruits at the local Army training base, Fort Jackson (one of the largest bases for training recruits in the Army) will die of heat stroke. You think winter is bad? I always say that you can put on more clothes, but you cannot peel off your skin.

There was a time when the teeth of local folks were improving, but sadly, now that meth is the hot drug, they look worse than ever. The University of South Carolina is the kind of place that cares deeply about the basketball team (Go Cocks!), but not about the life of the mind.

If you're the kind of guy who likes to take off your shirt, get in your bass boat and down a couple of beers while your girlfriend (who is driving because her license has not been revoked) drives to the steaming hot lake, then the Midlands region of South Carolina is for you!

Seriously, dude, when I was a kid, I dreamed of New England, of snow, of short summers and long autumns and Springs, where I wouldn't have to have so much sex with my sister because there was nothing else to do and we were high.

May I recommend the Midwest, instead? Lots of lakes, low housing prices, less underdevelopment.

If you can possibly afford something in Columbia per se you will be much happier here, particularly around the neighborhood called Shandon. Lexington County was wall-to-wall Republican even when this was still the Solid South. Columbia is quite blue; the suburbs, as with the rest of the country, are the other thing. PM me if you come down to look around and I'll give you the tour. The State Museum, while no Smithsonian, is quite interesting. The Art Museum, while small, is very pleasant. The Zoo is one of the best in the country, though the weather is generally much too hot for such foolishness. If you can adapt to tailgating for college football as the highest cultural attainment, you can probably fit in here. There are no professional sports here now except for minor league hockey.

could get really weird there.

If you can somehow get to the Charleston or Beaufort areas, you'll probably like them much better. Conway, near Myrtle Beach, is quite nice except for the beach traffic. Florence cannot be survived, though there are still a few yellow dog Democrats in the Pee Dee region.

If her only option is Myrtle Beach, know that you won't be meeting many people from SC, just tourists. As tourist traps go, it's a pleasant enough one, but traffic is terrible, mass transit is non-existent and unless you like country and western you may find the entertainment options a bit limited. If you need a relaxing life to give your heart a rest, try for Conway. It's prettier, shadier, quieter, cheaper, and still not too far from the beach.

moved to the NW and ended up in Beaufort SC likes it fine, as far as I can tell.