Yes, you're probably right. Hip is a relative term, I admit to being nearly 50. Not many younger folks find antiques interesting and such. It's not like a thriving downtown bar scene or something but it's way "hipper" than the boonies of NC or more locally a town like Ware or Monson.

I would consider Sturbridge. It's a cool, busy town with hip restaurants. An hour on the nearby "mass pike" highway gets you to Boston or 30 minutes to Springfield. One of the biggest antique shows in the country happens a few times a year just down the street in Brimfield. Hikes in nature just a skip away in the Brimfield State Forest. Centrally located to many other towns for some job opportunities with again, easy highway access.

The ugly part of MA is imo entirely focused on cost of living. You will have stuff like excise tax on your car(s), and housing costs are outrageous unless you go WAY off the path.

I have inlaws in Western NC and going to see them is like driving into Trumptown. I figured the coast would be more progressive but I guess not! One thing I immediately notice is that in western NC everything is spread way out. Driving anywhere feels like it takes forever. If the coast is like that, you may enjoy that it takes far less time to get around Massachusetts. If you hit slow downs it's more likely from traffic around the higher pop areas than just long distances of road.

Good luck with your move!

I love that they didn't bother addressing the craters and pot holes down on the Holyoke side of route 5 but they put a "road diet" on the other side where the McDonalds is. I turn right onto route 5 at that intersection going towards 57 nearly every day for work and watching people drag race at the McDonalds light so they can be "first" before the lanes squeeze down to one seems significantly MORE dangerous than it was. I understand people had a hard time pulling out of their driveways and side streets there but now it's one lane and people are doing like 80mph+ to try and be first to the next rotary entrance. Not sure the road diet was the right answer there but I'm not a civil engineer.

Some many years back now in 2008 I lost my job and everything. I was totally unprepared and through some misteps I could also not collect unemployment. So I ended up getting really behind on my utilities.

I got the threats of shutting off service/utilities and I called them to plead based on the same information about a law preventing shut off in these cold months.

They told me the same thing, pound sand. They are sending a guy to shut it off. At the time I lived in an apartment and the shut off would mean I'd have to let the guy in. So I just didn't answer my door.

Sometime shortly after that I called the Valley Opportunity Council and explained my situation. I wished I had just gone to them much sooner. They informed me that the utility company could not and should not be doing such, and if was unlawful. They stepped in and got the utility companies off my ass and even helped me settle the bill.

I don't know if you're in Western Ma or not, but if so, talk to those people at the VoC. They really saved my ass. You may have a similar program in your region of MA if not.

https://www.valleyopp.com/

Good luck.

Check out FloDesign Sonics in Willbraham

"American fare"

Informal casual vibe

https://www.google.com/search?q=roses+lee+ma&oq=roses+lee+ma&aqs=chrome..69i57.4665j0j4&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#lpg=cid:CgIYIQ%3D%3D&wptab=si:AC1wQDDDdL41DEgjGyPOBigrwOqEtAfVPK6SpxezkPo4ljNSZlucCTIeF4suN0miNJwAgGD45nLnCk4CaFnM-KCItBHS1-VIGgl8-oytyyxKhcU3b-9ChsMpy9V0hPgSu1ixS8vy96uQVs002AJuYN25dAvvPG1X4w%3D%3D

I recommend brunch at Rose's in Lee

I recall that the state required some kind of proof from paypal that I didn't have. Well it was either paypal or the bank I had connected to the paypal account. This was over a decade ago and the bank had long since been merged into some other bank. So all the records were long gone when I also tried asking the bank.

I resubmitted the claim yesterday for the hell of it. I will probably hit the same walls but we'll see.

I actually re-did the request again just for the hell of it. I can't remember how or why I got tripped up last time. I think the state was asking for some proof I couldn't provide? Maybe like a paypal statement or something. There was some reason I had to talk to paypal but we'll see.

They've been telling me for years now that paypal has 4000 bucks for me.

I spent hours on the phone trying to chase it down at first. It's entirely likely since I had a business attached to paypal once upon a time but that business email is long gone and I have no record of that paypal login, and can't reset the pw because the phone is also long gone where they want to send a code. Paypal claims they have no such record at all when I call them. I've given up on it but they love to keep reminding me now and then.