Reviews & Comments
Laupahoehoe, HI
Laupahoehoe -
2/19/2018On the Hamakua Coast about 25 miles from Hilo, the major employment and business center of the east coast of Hawaii, the
Springfield, OR
re: Springfield or Springtucky? - 3/11/2010 -
4/13/2011Update, more than a year later. On the plus side....a couple of problem bars in downtown Springfield have been closed down, it's amazing how fast the downtown area has turned around. New fashionable restaurants and other business give the downtown area a decidedly "chic" feel now. Also, our great public transit system, the EmX was expanded in January to serve the Gateway area...that area containing a good mall and a couple of miles of restaurants and big box I'd already mentioned. The economy has improved also the last year, in fact a full percentage point was lopped off the unemployment rate. Only thing on the negative side is the weather this year has been awful. Still no snow or ice, so that's nice, but we have seen precious few cloud free days since....October. None at all in March of 2011.
Seward, AK
Hard Luck Town -
2/27/2011At first view, Seward looks pretty good. It's scenic enough, sitting along Resurrection Bay, a deepwater fjord with glaciers hanging from the mountains surrounding it.
Look closer, though, and you'll see the downtown area, though scenic....is more like a run down ghost town than anything else.
I've watched Seward for thirty years or so. There's always something on the horizon which is going to turn the dreary economic situation around....which never seems to happen. Even when the "something" actually materializes. For example, there's a relatively new state prison on the other side of the Bay (not within sight of the water). Doesn't seem to have helped the economy that much. There's a world class sea aquarium which went in a few years ago. The occasional cruise ship started to come in to the port a few years back. Coal and grain were supposed to be exported from the port....facilities were constructed to facilitate these exports. The U.S. Army operates a recreational center in Seward. The State of Alaska operates a rather large vocational college.
Seward takes little notice of any of it, stays pretty much the same decade after decade.
Springfield, OR
Springfield or Springtucky? -
3/11/2010I live 19 months now on the Springfield side of the Willamette River and Interstate 5; Eugene is on the western side. Eugene has the University of Oregon and is considerably more "chic"; but for me, I prefer Springfield. Does have more than its share of toothless ones, most perhaps aficionados of meth...hence "Springtucky". But unless you want to involve yourself in that strata of society Springfield has its benefits. First...it's affordable. The weather is great....rarely snows or gets cold....this Winter many flowers in fact overwintered. There are palm trees about....yeah, they are scragilly, but they're here. Yeah, lots of overcast November through March, and considerable rain....but it's preferable to piles of snow and slipping on ice. Gets hot, really hot, in the Summer.....don't assume some sort of San Francisco cool Summer. The economy is terrible....hard to see how it ever really recovers. But if you're retired it's ideal. There is a very nice shopping area on the north side of town with a good mall and a couple of miles of restaurants and big box. There's a great public transportation system. And, Eugene is just across, with lots to see and do there. The coast, and a great casino, only 50 miles away after you pass through a scenic coast range. The Cascades only 50 miles to the east. The area is not diverse.....which I like, some may not. Tends to be a pretty safe area, with homeless skateboard youth the major terror....not gangstas, etc.
Anchorage, AK
A Work In Progress -
12/31/2007When I first saw Anchorage, in 1975, it was still very much a frontier town. And isolated: we'd get Walter Chronkite a day or two later by videotape (this was before satellite TV). It was, and rightly so, famously expensive as pipeline construction was in full bloom and the big box stores had not come: meaning Safeway could (and did)charge whatever it wanted (that part perhaps has not changed). But Anchorage felt like the frontier town that it was. Anchorage was still part of the Alaska of legend. It was fun to live there and everyone felt a sort of camaraderie in being part of it all...it was special. It's not anymore. Anchorage has mushroomed in population to the point where it's well over a quarter million people. Unfortunately, a lot of the new people who came in did not come in to be part of Alaska.....I think a lot of them, seriously, came up because of the Permanent Fund Dividend (a kind of reverse income tax where the State sends everyone, even infants, a check every year sometimes approaching $2000 each) and liberal welfare laws. So, now there are drug dealers on the corners of certain areas of town; the denizens of these gang infested areas are not shy about driving to nicer areas of the city to have their shoot outs there. Certainly in some ways it's "better" now with the Wal-Mart, Costco, etc.; but Anchorage is no longer part of the Alaska of old. If it ever was...it's always been said by people outside the Anchorage Bowl that Anchorage is only 20 minutes from Alaska; it's referred to as "Los Anchorage." There's really little difference between living in Anchorage and living in Seattle. A longer, colder Winter, perhaps. It's a great town in many ways, but it's not the same town that it used to be and that personally makes me a little sad. But you won't even know this and you will probably love Anchorage....but watch your back just like you do in Seattle or Portland.
Kodiak, AK
The Emerald Isle -
11/28/2007I lived on and in Kodiak more than twenty years ago and have been there since. First of all, as to the town.....it's not as scenic as one might expect, as a good part of the downtown area was swept away by the tsunami of 1964 and the replacement was erected haphazardly and has deteriorated badly since then. There is a large area of tacky, boxy homes called Aleutian Homes which looks to have been at one time some kind of military housing which converted to civilian use and is not exactly scenic. Very few trees in Aleutian Homes giving the area a kind of post apocalyptic feel. Much of the town has been overrun by a huge influx of Filipinos who came in originally to work the canneries, many still do, but many now seem to be devoted to less savory activities and have formed into gangs. Which is not to say that some of the town is not in fact quite scenic, and the immediate setting is spectacular with smaller islands offshore from Kodiak City in beautiful blue green seas. There is a small channel between Kodiak City (on Kodiak Island) and Near Island which, during storms, is breathtaking as the channel is converted into a raging "river" with stupendous waves. The Kodiak Archipelago consists of several large islands (Kodiak, Afognak, Raspberry, Spruce among them) and perhaps hundreds of smaller islands...if one has even a skiff and the weather is calm one can enjoy pristine maritime adventures equalled in few areas of Alaska or the world. The weather is mild by Alaska sandards, not as cold, not as much snow, although there are tremendous rain storms. Wal-Mart and a huge, well stocked Safeway make living in Kodiak not as primitive as it used to be and there has been construction of nice apartment buildings. It's a relatively short flight to Anchorage.
Los Angeles, CA
re: it was a forced treaty that the white man has -
11/23/2007For those who obviously do not know their history and persist in exaggerating Mexico's "original" ownership of California...let me set the record straight. Mexico "had" Alta California for about twenty years, only, after Mexico won independence from Spain until the U.S. took it over. Mexico did nothing with California for those twenty years; in fact, Mexico downgraded California's status to that of a territory. There were only a few hundred "Mexicans" in California, outnumbered by aboriginals. Mexico in 1848 had not much more "ownership" of California than it does of the Moon today. My family lived in a duplex above what is now Dodger Stadium in the early 1950's. When a Mexican-American family moved in (the father was an old fashioned traffic cop downtown, who used to direct traffic using white gloved hand signals as he stood in the middle of an intersection)....when they moved in, the entire neighborhood (now perhaps 100% Hispanic) thought of them as exotic.
Whittier, AK
A Strange Little Town -
11/22/2007Lived in Whittier about thirty years ago; it hasn't changed much since. It was originally developed by the military on a fiord of Prince William Sound with only a few massive concrete buildings with tunnels connecting the buildings. Idea was to allow the troops (and their dependents) to avoid exposure to the elements: 400 inches of snow, as well as frequent rain, with howling, constant winds the norm. Most of the buildings have been abandoned, almost everyone lives in the 15 story Begich Towers; most of the rest in a ramshackle wooden building on the dock. Only about 60 miles fom Anchorage but might as well have been on the moon: until a road was finally punched through about 5 years ago. Still not readily accessible to Anchorage, however, as the road is one way (pilot cars will lead staged automobiles out, and pick up the traffic on the other end and bring them back the other way: the toll is $15. The road is closed at night and also shares two tunnels with the Alaska Railroad. Town is pretty sorry but is in a spectacular setting. Town has promise with the opening of the road and rumors of developing the town into a real town...which it is not now.
Mullan, ID
Pretty Spot....Not Much To Do -
11/19/2007I lived in Mullan for about six months in 2003. It's basically a ghost town in the Northern Idaho Panhandle, hard on the Montana line in a mountainous valley. Interstate 90 runs right through the town. There's one operating silver mine still open right outside town limits, but many others in Silver Valley area are shut down. One of the largest Super Fund cleanup areas in the nation as a result of the former mining activity. Still, very beautiful and the cleanup has resulted in an extensive trail system (but you're not to step off the trails or your children might be born resembling aliens!). Housing can be cheap, cheap: back in 2003, you could buy perfectly fine looking houses for $7000 (even though they didn't have foundations other than a bed of logs). I had a beautiful apartment in a somewhat renovated old hotel for $150/month. Wallace, the Shoshone County seat nearby, is where one shops and is also very scenic: it was the stand in for the mythical town of Dante's Peak in the film of the same name starring Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton.
Ketchikan, AK
Back To Ketchikan -
10/16/2007Made it back to Ketchikan here in April, 2007.....still as spectacular as ever, hard to find affordable rental housing, however, at anything reasonable. Virtually impossible at any price to find a place in the Season (April through late September).
Ketchikan, AK
Undiscovered Gem - If Wet -
8/22/2006I lived in Ketchikan for about one year, prior to relocating to the "big city" of Anchorage....in many ways, wish I never left Ketchikan. The natural beauty all around you, unavoidable whenever you go outside (and even visible perhaps as you go from window to window inside)....is spectacular. Mountains, forests, offshore islands, water everywhere....picture post card. Rain is measured not in inches, however, but in feet. The town has all the basics, even a Wal-Mart, and a Safeway (Carr's). Housing is affordable by Alaska standards. The economy is not robust for many, however, due to death of timber industry and decline in fishing due to the advent of farmed salmon, principally. If you've got an income or can be assured of an income Ketchikan is a great place.
Wallace, ID
Wallace, Idaho -
8/11/2006Wallace was the stand-in for the mythical town of Dante's Peak in the Pierce Brosnan film of the same name, about a Pacific Northwest town obliterated by a volcanic eruption. If you saw the movie, you saw several scenes filmed in Wallace....a pretty little old fashioned looking town. It's set in Idaho's
Silver Valley, an economically depressed area (silver mines closed down) nestled amongst mountains which are basically part of the Rocky Mountains. It's very cheap to live in the Wallace area.