Bellingham: Pros and cons?

[yakimuchacho]

I am thinking about escaping the cholo-life in Yaki-Vegas and moving to Bellingham. I want to know what is going on with Bham (economics, climbing, culture, weather, growth, everything). Let me have it!

[Dru]

pro: close to Squamish and Shuksan

con: rain

[snoboy]

pro: the Black Drop coffeehouse

 

www.theblackdrop.com

[Skeezix]

Pros: College town with tons of culture, beautiful setting with parks, San Juan Islands, boating, 50 minutes to the lifts at Baker, weather is fair -less rain than Olympia due to rain shadow effect of Olympics, easy commute up the Skagit Valley for climbing and steelhead fly fishing, midway approx. between Seattle and Vancouver, pleasant downtown core recovering from development of mall on outskirts, respectable folk and rock music scene, two indoor climbing gyms (one low and wide, one tall and narrow...), huge mountain and road biking scene, excellent public school system. Cons: growing pains, Meridian Street traffic, ugly waterfront, expensive home prices (sellers' market), quite a few thugs and cro-magnons loitering on Railroad Avenue downtown, jobs can be scarce, Bush is president.

[Blake]

I'd say that there is a large "outdoors" scene in general. Climbing specific, there are a lot of boulderers, maybe because that's all there is to do in the town itself. We are 45 mins from Mt. Erie, 1.5 hrs from Index, and the North Cascades are close by. As mentioned, sqamish is a day trip, as is whistler.

[ashw_justin]

doesn't feel like a big city, lots of great alpine stuff close by, far away from metropolises, awesome long summer days (and long winter nights).

[EWolfe]

Lots of hot women.

 

Decent live music and club scene.

 

No decent climbing gym.

 

Reasonable rents.

 

Shortage of great restuarants.