On The Move

My wife likes mountains. I like lakes and rivers. Neither of us like snow or extreme heat.

I want to live in a place with less than 250,000 people, my wife wants to live in a place with more than 25,000. (Funny, we were the opposite ten years ago!)

I want a place where I can walk to the river or lake. We walk the San Antonio river walk three or four times a month but it's a 20 minute car ride just to get there. I want to live within walking distance.

She wants a shorter commute to work. Her current job is a two hour round trip three days a week.

We both want to live somewhere with pine trees and faster internet.

Now that the kids are grown we both want a smaller house. And I want a place without a lawn to mow.

We've spent a couple days online looking for a new place that checks every box for both of us, not too hot, not too cold, not too big, not too little, and I think we've found our next home town.

It's Knoxville, Tennessee.

Knoxville is about three hours away from our grandbabies and our boat so we could easily do some waterski trips each summer. It's at the base of the Great Smokey mountains so hiking trails are easily accessible.

Tennessee is one of the few states that recognizes a Texas nursing certificate so my wife won't need to go back to school to continue her career.

We'll visit in September to get a feel for the place. If it's everything we expect it to be we'll sell our home in San Antonio and move to Knoxville next year, right after Sara turns eighteen. We might rent for a year to give us time to figure out which part of the city or suburbs we want to live in, and once my wife gets a job there we can factor her commute into our final decision.

San Antonio has been good to us and we'll always remember it fondly, but 15 years is enough. Rising temperatures make each summer more uncomfortable than the last. It's time to make the move we've always wanted, near mountains and water, to a temperate and walkable forever home.