We are transplants to the Chambana area from Joliet / Will county area. We’ve been down here since 2007. Bought our house and generally living “ok” but have started to think recently we should move.

While yes the gun violence has gone up in recent years, we still feel safe in our neck of the woods. What really has gotten to us is a sense of a lack of a community or tribe for us. We are in our early 40’s with kids going into 2nd and 4th grade. My wife is a nurse and I’m a pharmacist looking to transition to teaching or creative design (think museum exhibits, theme park and entertainment experiences and the like).

I feel like there is a lack of opportunities for us (a quite introverted family except for our daughter) to meet and socialize with like minded people. By like minded I mean geek culture. We were avid board gamers (prior to kids and our board gaming friends who moved), love Marvel, Dr Who, Star Trek, Star Wars, and Stargate (noticing a pattern here? Lol).

My hobbies include 3D printing, building functional animatronic droids, electronics, programming or coding, building replica props, cosplay, model building, miniature painting, and monster makeup. Think Adam Savage.

While there is a Fab Lab with the University, my projects are slightly more advanced and I have most of the same equipment they do save for a laser cutter and a milling machine.

There is Ren Faire in Bristol, WI to the north and Gen Con in Indy to the east. We like to travel and attend when possible but that’s not often. We’d love to go once a year but have only been able to go to Ren Faire once and Gen Con twice in the 15 years we’ve been here.

What we miss is in the Chicago metropolis we could often find mom and pop type shops and tons of meetups that various groups would have. We would drop in on 2600 meetings at central station or a board game shop in Downers Grove.

Now, while we miss being close to a larger variety of opportunities, we are introverted and like to keep to ourselves. We would love to be in a wooded area with 1-2 acres.

So, should we stay or should we go? We’ve never lived anywhere but IL but we really love the mountains and are liberal (or Socialist Democrats ala Bernie Sanders) in our politics.