Posted: 10/3/2025 6:38:22 PM EDT
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Bloomington is on a list of possible places I might end up for work. What’s the good, bad, and ugly? |
Don't you tell me about galaxies! I walk them in the timeline.
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Originally Posted By sparkyfender2: Ultra liberal. They coddle the homeless and wear the hobo camp like a badge of honor. On the bright side, everything outside the town limits is very conservative. @sparkyfender2 I appreciate it. |
Don't you tell me about galaxies! I walk them in the timeline.
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Bloomington is a blue haven in a sea of red but it's not as bad as people make it out to be. If you like college sports there is a lot to do. Baseball, basketball, football, soccer, field hockey, volleyball. Many games are free. We went to the women's soccer game yesterday and you just walk in and find a seat. We got football tickets for the UCLA game off vettix.org and it was an awesome experience. We go to 2-3 football games a year. There are also theater/dance programs for very reasonable costs like ballet or plays. The Jacob's School of Music also does public performances. Lake Monroe is the largest lake in the state which offers boating, camping, swimming and fishing. There's Lake Michigan way up north but it's not really in the state per se. I'd recommend getting the State Park pass (after the 1st of the year). It's $50/yr and gets you into every state park. Camping/fishing licenses are obviously an extra cost on top of that but very reasonable. West of town by Spencer is McCormick's Creek State Park which has decent hiking. They're rebuilding the camping area right now as it was leveled a couple of years ago by a tornado. Downtown B Town has decent restaurants and bars. It's a college town so there is towny season, and college season. You learn to know when the kids are in town or gone for breaks/summer. The worst areas IMO traffic wise are the around the bypass which is 46 from I-69 to the College Mall area. That goes right by the stadiums, hospital, and mall area. The second biggest gripe about traffic is there's no real easy way to get from one side of town to the other in the center or south side of town so everyone goes up to the bypass and over which is why the bypass sucks. So you tend to hear things referred to as the west or east side a lot. As far as shooting if you want to shoot indoors there is one place a little south of town. Outdoor I usually go to Deer Creek SRA. It's a state range but privately operated. No yearly fee's and it's fine for basic pistol or bench shooting rifle. I think it's like $6-7/hr. The best gun store in driving range is Top Guns in Terre Haute. Competitive prices on guns/ammo with a good selection of both handguns and long guns. They also have an indoor range and do classes. There is US Defense Solutions in Ellettsville which can order guns (small selection normally) and they can do basic gunsmithing. Academy is on the east side, and their gun counter isn't bad. I've bought two guns from there this year, and was in/out in 15 minutes. They do the stupid perp walk to the door but it's corporate policy. I talked to the store manager there, and he said the gun section there is the best department sales wise in the whole store. As far as shopping there is College Mall which is meh (the only Target in town is there), Sam's Club south side next to Walmart, Kroger is the main grocery store chain, and there is a couple of Fresh Thyme's which are decent but a little more expensive. Weather- my wife grew up in the area and said they used to get a lot more snow than we do now. It's usually not bad, and the state starts on the state roads pretty quick. There are also city/county plows depending on where you are at. Even if we get a foot of snow you can expect to be driving on pretty clear roads in under 24 hours. Summer is humid and only gets worse once the corn sweating season starts. I tend to stay indoors during the day during corn sweat time as it's just miserably humid IMO. Fall is always nice. Brown County State Park east of town is really nice for fall tree viewing. Spring is usually the storm season, and don't discount the possibility of severe weather here. People will tell you about the Bloomington Bubble and they're full of shit. Just in the past few years we've been hit by a derecho, another straight line wind storm, and just this year a tornado went through the south side of town. The two bad straight line storms we had knocked power out for 10's of thousands for days in the area. I watched a tree uproot and land on my neighbors house in one of them. I mentioned the tornado that tore up the state park west of town a few years ago. I filmed another tornado from my front porch that ended up being used on the news. I should mention this last part because it catches people off guard. Despite IU Health Hospital being here if you have medical issues the area isn't the best for people that need a lot of medical attention. Getting appointments or specialty appointments can be challenging. A lot of people end up going to Indy or down to Louisville for faster treatment. There are services here but you have to remember what I said about the student season. The town gains something like 50k people when the kids are in town so medical services are busier when they're here, and the hospital is across the street from campus. My wife is on a few meds and the best pharmacy we've found is Sam's with the Plus Membership. Everything she is on is significantly cheaper there vs. Kroger or CVS. Oh they like to rape us on gas prices. Go 30 minutes outside of town and gas is often 30-40 cents cheaper per gallon. We either get gas at Sam's or Kroger using the fuel rewards. |
I'm not the one REEING, motherfucker! -FCSD2162
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[ No problem. It would be nice if more people posted in this forum. For reference, I live about an hour south of Bloomington. The IN HTF is disappointingly slow. However, we have a very active HTF signal group. Lots of us squad together at local 2gun matches and occasionally get together for shoots. Lots of shooting opportunities if you don’t mind driving a little. I’m about 1-1/2 hours south of Bloomington. |
