Thanks for the replys. I will keep the 288 in mind when we go looking again for housing. There is always the chance that I might love it there and we would retire there, but all my life I have seen myself retiring in the Texas to Wyoming area, or at least going west from Indiana, and never ever under any circumstances had I considered either coast. Especially the left coast. I am afraid I would have to let my wife go without me if that were the case. My wife works for a big tobacco company located in Richmond and they are closing the local plant. She is only 4.5 years from retirement so it is off we go for those 4.5 years. Since her work and retirement is so much better than mine she is the one who we must consider most. From what I saw of the Richmond area last summer when we did our first look about vacation I liked what I saw, but man, if I thought the traffic in the Louisville KY area was bad, the traffic we hit around rush hour on the Midlothian Parkway was a nightmare. I guess you learn to avoid that though the same I do around home. Once you know the back roads and tricks it is OK to get around.
After checking out the other posts that I did not catch before (stupid, stupid, stupid) and the one about the NFA counties I told my wife when she got home tonight, anywhere but Henrico County. It looks from the housing web searches we have done Chesterfield County, Powatan County, and Amelia County are the favorites.
Building material is a bit different in Richmond also. Around our area everything is brick. Very little is done in siding unless they are modular homes, yet that is one thing that we found very scarce over there. Almost everything we have seen is siding with very few brick structures. Our realtor told us that brick yards are far and few between in the Richmond area whereas it seems you cannot go 5 miles out of town locally in any direction without hitting a brick yard or two. A lot to learn in just a little time. Thanks for all your help.