Anyone thinking of upgrading or dismantling your layout

It is only a bit to the south and west, however Middletown is a boom town which you may want to consider or points in between that and Bear.  I am surprised that they have basements in Bear with such high water tables all around there.

Cranberry Township is nice. Our NMRA division would welcome you. And we have a fine re-education camp for Flyers fans as well. 😉🤣

I finally arrived at the panel sizes for the new layout table top – after trying to squeeze out every inch possible. I submitted the order for lumber, and I am waiting to hear back about whether they can do all of the cuts – one is a rip cut. Once I complete the benchwork support, I will arrange the plywood panels and have my son do any cut adjustments (shortening / cut-outs / rounding corners). I left space on the backside of the layout for access – one of the hold-ups was to make sure I could bring track around the access area from the exit of a 72” circular track section. I have included a 1-minute video which (hopefully) scans the train room showing the cardboard sections I used as templates. I have some track down on the floor for preliminary test purposes – and to have some fun running trains. I was running a Lionel Burlington Route GP-7 (#2328, 1955-56 ) – it may have shown up in the video. Alfred
youtu.be/xxBIZrMjfOY

In south jersey you would be close to the sports arena's. Jersey taxes are high though, but they are getting high everywhere.
Lots of nice places in south Jersey, depends on what your looking for.

Dave

Awww, you just want me to take you to a game again! 

Actually, any nearby  Major League city would work. Just this season we caught a Phillies game and a Flyers game during our York Meet trip, then three more Phillies games here in San Diego and four more Phightin’ Phils games in August in Phoenix. I’ll see almost as many games as when we lived near Philadelphia!

But aside from that we’re checking out taxes, future medical care and weather too warm for snow to start. And I’d love to be within driving distance of York and all youse guys again. But I’m letting Lynley take the lead on this. My major criteria is a large space for a layout. She can decide what home to get and where. The ideal situation is the best of all of it. I make no small plans. 

A couple of reasons brought us out to the west coast. Mainly, my wife received a career offer she couldn’t refuse. And that has worked out well. Second, our parents were aging and it was getting difficult to tend to their needs and traveling back and forth from the East. My parents were in the Phoenix area and my wife’s parents were in the San Francisco Bay Area. After discussing this we decided to make the move for her career and to be closer to assist our parents. It wasn’t fun moving but it worked out well. 

Since then both of my wife’s parents have passed and also my Father. My mom, 88, is still in Phoenix but doesn’t want to leave her house. So with my wife being a couple years from retirement we are looking to downsize a bit. When she got her new job they wanted her to start right away and we didn’t have much time to house shop. We bought a home we liked but it’s a bit larger than we need and the costs are high, mortgage, taxes and utilities are much higher than we had back East. We can afford it but the daily cost of living out here keeps rising. I’m not going to get into the political climate but this state and county never saw a tax they didn’t like. 

We actually love living here, the weather, the beaches, the restaurants, the people and neighbors we’ve met and access to all the sports teams we love. But we feel we would do better financially for the future somewhere else. Smaller homes out here are now more expensive than the current large home we have now since we got here. It’s worked out well for my wife’s career and being close by our parents, but life is shifting as it tends to do. We prefer to be proactive in steering that shift in a positive direction.