Yea!  Congratulations!

Best of all is the short commute.  Walk or bike if you can.

I’m happy to hear you have found a place.  Our truck will be ready for you when the time comes.  I think maybe your sister might be able to help too but I won’t commit her.  I know you have got to be relieved.

Man that is good to hear!

Best of all it sounds like you’re close enough to where you won’t have to drive. Living close to work has helped me save a lot of money!

Congrats!  There’s a lot to be said for living close to work enough to work to walk.

Good Luck!

$7 a gallon

Ha- try £1.17/$2.30 litre at the moment.  The price here has gone up 30p- approx 58 cents a litre (About $2.70 rise per gallon) in the last 7 months.  Apparently ‘experts’ are not sure why oil price is rising so quickly- China/India and the middle east shouldn’t be doing it this severly.  The suspicion is it’s due to speculators gambling on the markets last year- you can buy futures up to 2 years ahead.

I’m not after any personal info, but I’d be interested in comparative costs- what’s a typical rent round you- what do you get? What about a typical week’s shopping, and what is considered an average wage/take home?

Hi Les, let me join the gang in congratulating you on the move - and yes, walking is a great and cheap way to get to work if you can. If you feel it might be a bit too far, try it out for a week (a day or two isn’t enough!) and you might find that the benefits you can get are worth it (less cost, more fitness, less stress than a car - though the last bit obviously depends on whether the walking route is worth anything).

I hope it works out for you and your family, Les.  I’ve never been to Ann Arbor but I’ve heard good things about it- lots of culture and liberal politics.

Commuting with public transportation, or bike, or on foot, is the way to go.

It’s still a bit far for me to feel comfortable walking every day, but I may try to track down a good used bicycle as an alternative. This morning I dropped off some paperwork at the leasing office so I was able to get an idea of just how far it is from work. By car, including stoplights, it’s almost exactly 5 minutes of time at an average speed of 35MPH.

So, yeah, walking in a pinch is doable, but probably be better time and fatigue-wise if I can pick up a bike someplace.

Les, if you can figure out how to get it there from Normal, Illinois, I’ve got a good used bicycle for you.  Cruiser style, fatt tires, bitchin’ Shimano 7-speed hub.  Anyone going that way?

Hmmm. According to Google Maps it’s a good 5 hour drive from Ann Arbor to Normal Illinois.

Hmmm. Might make an interesting road trip some day…

Normal isn’t exactly a tourist mecca, despite the delusions of our town council.  But if anybody happens to be making the trip North, and happens to have a van…

despite the delusions of our town council

The place is called ‘Normal’, what other evidence do you need!

I note that you are only 35 miles from Peoria- the following quote from the rules errata from the game “Kung Fu CB Mamas on Wheels vs the Motorcycling Aztec Wrestling Nuns” puts the area into context

Page 3 Para 5.  In the second sentence please move the phrase beginning with “boring” and ending “unbelievably dull slice of Americana” to after the words “Peoria, Illinois, a”.

Actually Peoria, being along the Illinois river, has actual hills and is considerably more interesting geologically than Normal.  Here’s a picture I took along the North edge of Normal:

Feel free to lay a ruler or other straightedge along the screen to get an idea of just how flat it is here…

Nice pic, dof.  Actually, that looks very much like the view north of our summer house on the Donau Kanal, in the years when they have rye planted.  The only difference is that on really clear days you can see the Karpathen mountains in the background, across the Czech border.  Lots of Austria looks just like that.