During my day trip to Northern Virginia last week, I sat in the office of a friend I had not seen since leaving a year ago. He asked a question I get often from those who still live the urban life.

“Why Floyd? What on earth motivated you to move way out in the country?”

The same question comes up here. Some who have lived here for years still wonder if they made the choice.

For me it was a homecoming – of sorts – even though it meant coming home to a place I swore would always be in my rear view mirror. Yet 40 years on the road, four decades of plane travel, living out of suitcases and then coming home to urban sprawl, endless traffic and the hustle and bustle of the city took its toll.

For Amy it was something entirely different – a first exposure to rural life, water from wells, spiders on the porch, deer grazing in the front yard and a bear who visits at night. She had lived in cities all her life.

Some come to the country because one or the other in a relationship wants to make the move and the other is a tentative, if not reluctant, follower. We didn’t suffer from that problem. Our marriage is a team effort and we don’t do things unless both members of the team agree it is the best decision for both.

We made the move because we both wanted to, just as we both wanted to make the move to Washington in 1981. No regrets, no second thoughts, no recriminations.

We miss some things about life in the city: Chinese delivery, 24-hour diners, and Vietnamese restaurants. And we missed our favorite hamburger joint – Five Guys – until we found one in Blacksburg and the new one that just opened in Salem. We stopped at the Five Guys in Salem for a burger and fries while on a trek for French doors Monday afternoon. But we don’t miss the traffic, the pollution, the noise, the dirt and the crime. We don’t miss sirens echoing off the tall buildings of Arlington day and night or the constant sound of construction in an area that never stops growing.

And we don’t second-guess our decision to move to Floyd, even when the grass grows faster than we can cut it, the water pipes break or the hot water heater dies. Floyd is our home now and it will be for the rest of our lives.