If You Lived Here You’d Be Home By Now: Why We Traded the Commuting Life for a Little House on the Prairie Audiobook (Free)

The hilarious, charming, and candid story of writer Christopher Ingraham’s decision to uproot his existence and move his family to Red Lake Falls, Minnesota, population 1,400-the community he made famous as “the worst spot to reside in America” in a tale he wrote for the Washington Post.

Like a lot of young American lovers, Chris Ingraham and his wife Briana were having a hard time making ends meet as they tried to improve their twin kids in the East Coast suburbs. One day, Chris-in his function about If You Lived Here You’d Be Home RIGHT NOW: Why We Traded the Commuting Lifestyle for a Little House on the Prairie like a “data man” reporter at the Washington Post-stumbled on a study that would switch his life. It was a ranking of America’s 3,000+ counties from ugliest to many scenic. He quickly scrolled to underneath from the list and gleefully composed the words “The absolute worst place to live in America is (drumroll make sure you) … Red Lake State, Minn.” The storyplot went viral, to put it mildly.

Among the reactions were many from residents of Red Lake County. While these were unflappably polite-it’s not called “Minnesota Nice” for nothing-they challenged him to look beyond the spreadsheet and actually visit their community. Ingraham, with slight trepidation, approved. Impressed by the locals’ warmth, laughter and hospitality -and ever more alert to his finances and torturous commute-Chris and Briana ultimately made a decision to relocate to the town he’d simply dragged through the dirt on the web.

If You Lived Here YOU WOULD BE Home by Now is the tale of making a choice that turns all your preconceptions-good and bad-on their mind. In Crimson Lake State, Ingraham experiences the intensity and power of small-town gossip, struggles to find a decent cup of coffee, suffers through winters with temperatures shedding to forty below zero, and unearths some truths about small-town life that the coastal media generally miss. It’s a wry and wonderful tale-with data!-of what happened to one family courageous enough to go waaaay beyond its comfort zone.