Everything's Green!

In my previous post, I talked about how we came upon Raleigh as a place to live. In early 1999 I was offered and had accepted a very lucrative position in "The Triangle" that was a great match for my skills. It was now time to find a home.

When Kathy flew out with me from the West Coast for our househunting trip, the first thing she found remarkable was how green everything is in North Carolina. Out West, we had several years of drought during the '90's so there was a lot of browns and oranges there. Here, (Back East,) the blues and greens stood out as quite a distinction over what we were used to.

We figured we would rent for the first year or so in order to get accustomed to the area before we settled in on a town to buy a house. My company's relocation firm set us up with a really nice agent to help us find a place to live. One thing we found unusual, having been out of the housing market for so long, was that every relatively new house is in a subdivision of some sort. Restrictive covenants? What the heck are those? We were told that in a metropolitan area such as Raleigh/Durham, expect to live in a subdivision. In California, we lived in a town called Morgan Hill, south of San Jose in the Silicon Valley of the Bay Area, in a little bungalow by Lake Anderson. A boating, fishing, and swimming community that had little restrictions, if any, that we were aware of. But I suppose we could get used to living in a subdivision if that's what The Triangle was offering.

The agent finally helped us find a brand new house for rent in West Raleigh. The home was between the CarMax and the Hertz Car Sales on Glenwood Ave near Umstead Park and the Pines of Carolina Girl Scouts Council. It was great because it was close to RDU Airport and Crabtree Valley Shopping Mall.

The best part was that it was only about ten miles from my office, and Kathy was also able to find a job she enjoyed which was also only about ten miles away. In the Silicon Valley, it is not at all unusual to have to drive on the 101 freeway for thirty miles or more - one way - to get to work.

So now we had a place to live. Welcome to The Triangle!