Ft. Drum, NY: **When I was there**, there was no housing, on post or off. I finally got a call for on-post housing over a year after I arrived, when my husband and I were leaving to Ft. Huachuca. Ft. Drum is very rural. I liked Ft. Drum in the summer, the post has a beach and lots of stuff to do. It is a large spread out post. The roads are laid out like Boston and London, in a large spider web shaped; it took me forever to learn my way around post. Watertown has a small mall, two Walmarts, a Target and some other new stores were being built by the time we left. I went to Alexandria Bay, Sackets Harbor, Oswego, Connecticut and Salem, MA. I enjoyed traveling around the area. There is river rafting but I never found any rollerblading or mountain biking trails. The nearest big city Syracuse (which has the nearest university) is over an hour away and the drive feels like FOREVER, it never gets shorter. There is an incredible park on the hill in Watertown, my husband loved running up the stairs... you'll see. The winters were unbearable, people came from Alaska and said that Alaska was warmer, average heating bills off post $500, yes, I thought they were exaggerating as well. Your best bet is to buy into the electric or gas programs to pay all year and average out the bill. Also, the food options were limited, my whole time there I did not find one really good (non-chain) restaurant. There was no mexican food, and the only chinese came from Buffets or the mall, there was a Thai restaurant hidden out in the country off of a back road to Ft. Drum, it was so so. The schools (where I worked) were decent, none were on post. The high school was large and full of a prevelent attitude of gang banging. Just keep your children (no matter what color) focused on good morals rather than the "in thing". I wanted to see more parents put there foot down and stop buying the damn gold teeth. Those kids went overboard with "bling". ~Grin~ Due to the lack of restaurant choices and the cold winters I thought that I was thankful when we were transfered to Ft. Huachuca.
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