Probably if I were to go there I’d poke around the Mark Twain National Forest, mostly on dirt roads and the alike. I’m guessing it’s a mixture of upland timberlands and leased pasture and significant inholdings but I’ve don’t know for sure yet, I’d have to do more research. I’m envisioning something like the Finger Lakes National Forest but I could be wrong.

I’ve heard the state is hot and muggy in the summer but also in the salt belt in the winter. I’ve heard drugs, crime and poverty can be quite bad parts of the state. But so is the case with many rural areas with ample access to farm fertilizer anhydrous ammonium and long hard work days leading to opiod addiction and meth. Pollution and hazardous waste sites dot the countryside and outskirts of city but that’s not uncommon in New York either. Buffalo and Niagara Falls alone have hundreds of brownfields but you get a few miles out and your in pretty wild country that’s largely unspoiled.

I’m just so fascinated by other regions of the nation and other ways of living. New York has its own cultures, customs, folkways and laws – some good, some bad. Some of the laws and regulations in Upstate NY are just asinine.

I like the idea of living somewhere that land is affordable and taxes are low. Where your not fighting codes or zoning with everything you do. Where you can have livestock and privacy, where you don’t have to worry about neighbors complaining about your pigs or goats or trash burning barrel or making too much noise shooting off guns or fireworks.

Where you don’t have to get a pistol permit, where you can open carry if want, where you can buy an AR-15 for fun or shooting coyotes. Build a gun range out back from a sand pit with your tractor. Get together with some buddies burn that nasty old mattress or sofa bed in a bonfire and scrap the metal. Get muddy with your four wheeler.

There are plenty of small hick towns in New York that are fun to live in, where good ol boys have a lot of fun. I know I’ve been through many of them, the hills and hollars, the dairy country and hill high above them that provide timber and recreation.

But people pay a lot of taxes and everything is just so darn expensive in New York. Even taxes you don’t pay directly trickle down. You can get a pistol permit but it’s an unnecessary and costly process when other states you walk in, pass a background check and walk out with your gun. And if you own enough land, nobody has to know what your doing on it but still all it takes is one snitch.

Now I consider myself to be a liberal and a progressive. I’m a registered Democrat and I work for the party. But that doesn’t mean I’m happy with the direction of our state nor do I think it’s a good state to live in as a rural resident. Urban justice and helping people in need is good for the city folk but those of us who crave the wilderness of Rural America should seek elsewhere.