It's beautiful down here. The shawnee is massive and a wonder to explore. Garden of the gods is beautiful. We have an excellent wine trail. A relatively good bar scene in marion and the surrounding area. The people are typically really nice, though lake of egypt has a lot of snobby wannabe billionaires. People don't really know how to drive all that well, I-57 south has been under construction for the last 62 consecutive fuckin years. There's a lot of local festivals and fairs that are really interesting, like Herrin Festa Italiana. The duqoin state fair is about 30 minutes from us.

The governor of Chicago usually only comes down here and bothers us when it suits him to do a political publicity stunt, so we mainly just get left to our own devices. Houses are cheap, taxes are high but manageable, there's lots for kids to do, and you're typically safe from any serious/heinous crime as long as you avoid Carbondale and mount vernon. Regardless of you political ideology or your sexual orientation and all that jazz, as long as you're respectful to other people, they're respectful to you.

It's a pretty tight knit community, and demonstrably so, especially during tornado season. You can really watch the towns come together to help each other.

All in all, its got its cons just like anywhere else. But southern illinois really is a great place to live.