A few weeks ago I received a comment from a reader who lives up North and is considering moving to Roanoke. They asked me to write about Roanoke and what I think about living here. What are some of the pluses and minuses of Roanoke? What to expect and what not to expect? And, overall talk a little about the quality of life here.

With the next few posts I’ll do my best to answer these questions from my perspective, and generally so that they can apply to all ages. These posts hardly aim to cover everything about Roanoke, and I encourage you to leave comments below and add your own perspective.

With this post I’m going to write a little about the weather in Roanoke.

Weather

Overall, the temperatures in Roanoke are rather mild and pleasant for each season respectively. Aside from a few days out of the year, we usually don’t freeze too much, or suffer from the heat too much either.

This is not to say Roanokers are immune from some a few unbearably hot August afternoons, nor some icy filled mornings in late January or February. But, by and large things are rather calm around here in the weather department.

If you have children they will be happy to know that when we get any (and I mean any, even a bit over a dusting) of snow on the roads then schools promptly close for the day.

Hardly measurable snow Roanoke received back in November, which quickly melted by mid morning.

After the cold months, and for several weeks starting in late Winter and through early Spring, I shut off the thermostat and open the windows for some natural (and much cheaper) temperature regulation.

During the warm months it’s a daily scene to view the green mountains in the distance as you drive around town.

Mill Mountain (home of the Mill Mountain Star) as seen from the Jefferson Street Bridge.

In upcoming posts, more on the basics of living in Roanoke including crime and cost of living.

A few weeks ago I received a comment from a reader who lives up North and is considering moving to Roanoke, I believe as a place to retire. They asked me to write about Roanoke and what I think about living here. What are some of the pluses and minuses of Roanoke? What to expect and what not to expect? And, overall talk a little about the quality of life here.

With the next few posts I’ll do my best to answer these questions from my perspective, and generally so that they can apply to all ages. These posts hardly aim to cover everything about Roanoke, and I encourage you to leave comments below and add your own perspective.

Before I can even begin talking about Roanoke I feel inclined to give a brief background on how I came to call it home. And why I still live and work within minutes from the hospital where I was born.

My dad was born and raised in Roanoke. My mom moved here from the mid-west when she was young as a result of my grandfather being transferred while working for Norfolk-Southern.

Both of my parents (now divorced) still live in or in the vicinity of Roanoke. Well, my mom actually still lives in the same house where I grew up.

And those of my grandparents still alive also live in Roanoke, with several other relatives scattered throughout Virginia from here to Richmond.

I was born at Lewis-Gale Hospital and grew up in Roanoke County.

I went to college at Virginia Western and Radford University and then came back to Roanoke looking for work and my place in the world. Sometime later I purchased my first home in Roanoke City, found a rewarding career, and never had a chance or consideration to look back.

I suppose I could be called a “young professional” that Roanoke is looking to attract, or keep. And I plan on hanging around here for the long-term.

I don’t think it’s entirely accurate to say that we choose the city where we live.

Sometimes the city chooses us.

Next up, Living in Roanoke - The Basics.

I’m optimistic at the start of a new presidential term, but I also realize that these are tough times. And they may get tougher before they get better.

Even Roanoke has felt some of the effects of the weakened ecomony:

Circuit City Going Out of Business

I was genuinely saddened by this news. I’ve always liked Circuit City and shopped there many times going back to when it used to be over at Crossroads. I’m in the market to finally upgrade from my old tube TV to a new HDTV set so I may have to make a stop there and see what they have left. I drove by on Sunday and it looked very busy. Nothing like a store closing down to drum up business I guess.

Mill Mountain Theatre to Shutdown

I was frustrated by this news, mostly at myself. For years I kept telling myself I was going to take in a performance at the theatre, and it just never happened. Now, the time has run out.

Ukrop’s Picking up Some Business?

Since I read a Roanoke Times article about Ukrop’s not having enough business, it seems that they have had at least a little increase in business the times I have been there. I hope so. I’m doing about 99% of my shopping there now.

Many Deals at Some Stores Still Around

I was in need of some new shoes and clothes so I went to Tanglewood Mall this past Sunday. Belk had sale signs splattered all over the place. After several minutes I had picked out a pair of jeans, pants, and a few shirts. Based on what I could gather from markdowns and sales I estimated the total price to be about $115 for everything. Good deal I thought. When I got to the register it turned out being only $85, so I just smiled.

Then, it was off to JC Penney for a couple pair of shoes and they were quite busy in particular. I even ended up driving out to the Valley View store to get the shoes because they didn’t have my size at Tanglewood.

I plan on going back and buying more when I get my tax refund.

Final Thoughts

The state of the economy of course concerns me, but it doesn’t control me. I still work as hard as I ever have. I’m spending less than I used to, but I believe before now I was in fact over-spending. If I go out to eat or get a haircut I still tip well over 10%. I’m more conscious about paying down debt and saving for the future in my 401k. Most importantly, I live within my means.

I remember many months ago when the first talk of the new Art Museum had begun, and then earlier this year the actual construction and overall shape of the building starting taking real form.

(A few weeks ago I snapped some photos of the museum in a previous post.)

To say the design was greeted with mixed reviews is probably an understatement. I encountered people who thought it was “pretty cool”, others who thought it was “different”, and also a number of people who considered it an eyesore and very out of place in regards to the downtown area.

I fall into the “pretty cool” category.

I always thought the museum design to be very futuristic looking, it’s far from the typical 4 square walls and a roof kind of building. And I’m still amazed at how it was somehow squeezed into a rather small area at the corner along Salem Avenue and Williamson Road, and just adjacent to the railroad tracks.

Parts of the museum even stretch out rather close to the Williamson Road bridge nearby which stretches over the railroad tracks.

The museum design itself, combined with its modest footprint, all adds to the uniqueness I think.

I couldn’t make it down for the grand opening this weekend. But, sometime in the coming weeks I hope to check it out from the inside, after having marveled at the outside.

Were any of ya’ll able to make it down for the grand opening? First impressions?

And as a final note, as for the naysayers, the museum is there and now in all of our backyards, and I don’t know that talking about it under a negative light is particularly productive. (I’m trying to be nice.)

1) Commute to work and around to all areas of town quickly and comfortably in my own car, and I don’t have to set foot in a dirty and cramped subway.

2) Being able to look down at your city below, without the use of an elevator.

View From the Mill Mountain Star

3) An abundance of city parks, greenways, and biking/hiking trails for use, or being able to just take a casual drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway to temporarily get away from things, without having to actually go too far away.

4) Tacky and gimmicky? Perhaps. But a lighted star at the top of a mountain is rather cool in its own unusual way.

Beautiful Mill Mountain as Seen from the Elm Avenue Intersection with Route 220/I-581.

5) Many other Roanoke area bloggers who, whether with positive, neutral, or negative commentary, are still compelled to write about their own experiences and thoughts of Roanoke.

6) With the beautiful mountains providing a backdrop in just about any outdoor image, even an amateur-at-best photographer like me can snap decent pictures.

View Along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

A short and informal dissertation about why this blog tends to focus on the bright sides of Roanoke.

As readership of this blog has increased modestly over the past several months I have become more and more conscientious about what I post. I don’t mean that I censor myself or place restrictions on what topics to post about. But, I mean that I genuinely try to provide thoughts, pictures, and overall hopefully enjoyable insight into a few of the many aspects that make Roanoke unique.

Long-time and new readers alike can proabably pretty easily observe that as a whole Noke News tends to focus on positive aspects of Roanoke. I suppose this came about naturally. I live here, as do many of you, and it makes sense to me that I should write more about the pluses, and not so much about the minuses. If I wrote too much about the minuses this site would actually seem to me to be a series of reasons to move away.

And that’s certainly not how I feel and it’s not the message I want to convey.

Now, I know Roanoke does have its share of crime, hot-button issues, crooked politicians (or just plain irresponsible ones), poverty, and other unpleasantries.
 
Those negatives exist without question, but in large part I’ve choosen not to put them in the limelight or give them publicity on this site.

Why?

Well, it’s not because I don’t have a personal opinion on a particular matter.  The answer is simply because I sometimes find that Roanoke is victim to a bit too much negativity already. And I believe there are many other unique and favorable aspects about this great city that are more deserving of the limelight.

From a greenway down by the river, to a quaint park with paths made out of pebbles and small boulders for sitting, to a meaningful memorial at the top of the mountain, there really is a lot of neat stuff around Roanoke.  Even now in looking back at the over 120 articles posted here I’ve only scratched the surface in mentioning just a handful of them.

But, to me all of this stuff deserves a place at the front of the line (or on the front page) every now and then. And I’m here to put it there.

In other words, I think being positive about Roanoke can be contagious and I hope to pass it on.

Gas prices were up, and so were the temperature and humidty (pictures below) over this past weekend in Roanoke.

I may go so far as to call the former the Gas Price Panic of 2008 in Roanoke. By the time I left work in the early evening on Friday, all gas stations I passed were jam packed with at least 2-3 car deep lines waiting to fill-up. I had never seen anything like it before.

Normally, out of habit, I keep my tank at a minimum of 1/2 full at all times. This is partly for pyschological reasons so when I see the total on the pump I’m not shocked at the huge amount. Also, by just keeping plenty of gas in the car it’s one less thing to worry about in my busy life. I have a smaller car and only about a 12-gallon tank anyways.

But, I was scheduled to go out of town this weekend and had let the gasoline gauge fall to below 1/4 of a tank. Big mistake.

So, I just went home, fixed dinner and went about my normal business.

Later in the evening around midnight I went back out and managed to fill-up at the Sheetz at the corner of Apperson Drive and Electric Road. At that time they only had the 87 grade and for $3.79. I didn’t have to wait in line but most of the pumps were kept busy.

On Saturday, I traveled to Covington and along the way don’t recall any gas station being out of gas completely. As in with blank price signs or grocery bags on the pump handles. And most of them were $3.79-3.99 with no lines or anything.

I wonder why things seemed to go so crazy in the Roanoke area? I certainly hope no one paid anything in the $4 or higher range!

We also had a real hot and hazy day yesterday in Roanoke. I had nearly retired my A/C unit for the year and had to crank it back up. That machine probably ended up getting more work this past weekend then it had the whole previous week.

But, it looks like things will be cooling off now.

I’m ready.

 Here are a couple pictures I took yesterday while driving to Salem.

Clear view to the mountains in the background as seen when traveling on Brandon Avenue towards Salem. (9/14/08)

Apperson Drive in Salem, VA. (9/14/08)

A brief history of how I came to call Roanoke home.

Strong Roots

I was born and raised in Roanoke. My father also grew up here, and my mother moved here when she was young.

Both of my parents (now divorced) still live in or in the vicinity of Roanoke. Well, my mom actually still lives in the same house where I grew up.

And those of my grandparents still alive also live in Roanoke, with several other relatives scattered throughout Virginia from here to Richmond.

I went to college at Virginia Western and Radford University and then came back to Roanoke looking for work and my place in the world. Sometime later I purchased my first home in Roanoke City, found a rewarding career, and never had a chance or consideration to look back. I suppose I could be called a “young professional” that Roanoke is looking to attract, or keep.

The big city isn’t for me

I have on occasion visited a big city and within a matter of hours realized that that kind of life just wasn’t for me. Things move too fast there, and just seem to always be moving. When visiting Chicago, I remember looking out of the window from the hotel room and at all hours of the night seeing automobiles pass and even a handful of people scurrying about.

Here in Roanoke, I like that the sidewalks tend to for the most part roll up at a modest hour. I like that various parts of the city basically shut down on Sunday, and on a holiday. I love that except for about an hour or maybe two out of the day (and even that’s a stretch), there is really no traffic to speak of around town.

Making the choice

Each of us live where we do primarily from choices that we make along the road of life. I don’t think it’s accurate to say we just “end up” certain places as much as we may move to a new area to take a job, or we pick up roots in search of a higher quality of life. All of us have our own reasons.

I also don’t think it’s entirely accurate to say that we choose the city where we live. Sometimes the city chooses us.

How did you come about to call Roanoke home?