Hi everyone!! (I'll save the "Howdy ya'll" for when I'm an official Texan). I am so glad we (husband and I) found this site!
This is long but I beg your neighborly Texan indulgence.
My husband will be graduating from chiropractic school in October. Currently, we are people without a place to call home. He's from Missouri, I'm from Alberta, we met in Utah, now live in Iowa. For over a year, we have been scouring the Internet for information about San Antonio as this is our top pick for where we will settle down and call home. If, I repeat IF, we can be reassured that the beautiful places of the Texas Hill Country are not so crowded that it just won't be any fun, then Texas is just the place for us. We really, really want Texas to be our promised land. In so many ways it seems like it is, but no statistics on the Net are going to tell me what I need to know---only other nature lovers just like you. Some people just don't understand that for us, if we're cut off from nature too long, we start to wilt like a houseplants needing water. It's not a hobby for us, it's a NEED.
We're small town people. I grew up (town of 300 people) tramping around the Canadian Rockies and foothills and my husband grew up (town of 10, 000) exploring the woods of South East Missouri. We simply can't feel whole and happy without a lot of revelling in nature. We want to sit around a campfire at night and see the stars, hike through wooded forests that just make you want to breathe and breathe and breathe, and stand on top of a rocky outcropping as the wind blows all the anxiety of the daily grind away. Frequent and convenient escapes to find a little solitude out in nature is a must if we are going to live in a big city.
When we lived in Salt Lake City,Utah, we'd try to escape out of the city and go up the canyons---but it seemed everyone else in the state had got there first. Couldn't find picnic spots, parking spots, or camping spots or if you were lucky enough to find one after circling like a vulture for several minutes, then some group of beligerent teenagers with blaring music would be in the neighboring spot leaving their Coke cans on the ground. We learned to completely avoid the state parks and beautiful public lands on long weekends and holidays because it was just a zoo. A circus! A mob fest! If I want the State Fair then that's where I'll go!! I went back to Salt Lake City just last month for a visit and it's even worse now because of all the growth. I couldn't live there anymore---thank goodness I don't have to.
So, that's our one big reservation about moving to SA. That whole area is booming and getting bigger and bigger and bigger. We really want San Antonio to be the place for us. My husband visited there on business about five years ago and just fell in love with the city. He travelled all over the country and told me there's something special about Texas and he's never met friendlier people than in San Antonio especially. He's been begging to move to Texas ever since and I've finally given in
.
I think this Canadian girl can stand the brutal Texas heat and the loss of four seasons if I know I can still get out there and roll around in nature good and often without having to dodge hundreds of other people. I know the Hill Country is not the only beautiful place in Texas, but if we're in SA and want to just take a day hike or go wading in a creek, it's the only place close by. I'll be really miserable if I have to wait in line for a chance to look at the view . . .
Then again, if Texans are so down right neighborly, maybe being out in the hills with a bunch of them isn't so bad???
I know Texans are friendly, but don't you sometimes wish outsiders would stop pouring into your state? Are there still wide open (and pretty) spaces in Texas? Still room to breathe?
Please say yes . . .
Still room in Texas Hii Country for another nature nut?
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