"We were told it takes three years to get used to Texas," remembered Thomas. "They told us, `You may never like it, but you'll be used to it.'"
"It really is a whole 'nother country," said Shepard.
The couple asked their financial adviser how soon they could retire. "And he said, `It depends on where you want to live.'"
They purchased a workbook titled Places Rated Almanac by David Savageau, and took the 72-question preference quiz --"Which is more important, nearby national parks or number of stormy days a year?" -- compared their scores to charts in the book on such topics as ambience, housing, transportation, crime, jobs, climate, health care, recreation and education -- and came up with a list of a half dozen possibilities.
"We decided Boston was too tweedy, Savannah, Ga., was too Southern and too hot," said Thomas.
"I loved Philadelphia when I lived there, but we wanted a city that would be ours. Providence? Maybe. And Baltimore."
The rest, as they say, is history.
For Thomas and Shepard, Baltimore scored high in ambience -- they love the theaters, restaurants and the Inner Harbor -- and education. All the colleges and universities, plus the Enoch Pratt Library, make it a smart town.
But most important, Baltimore scored high in public transportation. The Amtrak, the MARC train, the light rail, the bus system and the Inner Harbor water taxi mean they could give up both cars and still travel easily in the city and on the Eastern Seaboard.
"Politics was important, too," said Shepard. There is a poster in their window that reads, "Civil Marriage is a Civil Right."
"We wanted to live not just where the people we voted for would get elected," said Thomas. "But where the politics matched ours."
After renting out their 1820s Otterbein home for a few years -- that was love at first sight, too -- they retired from Rice, sold both cars and moved to Baltimore in June 2006 .
"This city has good bones, as Debra says," said Shepard. "And it is a lively and upbeat place to live. People are happy around here. And I don't think I have ever had a moment of fear in this city."
Right now, the couple uses the light rail and the bus system to make the long commute to Annapolis two days a week to volunteer with the General Assembly.
Otherwise, the Red Flyer wagon that sits under a tarp in their postage-stamp-sized backyard is the only transportation they own. It has big tires to handle the cobblestones of Baltimore.
They use the wagon for grocery shopping at the Whole Foods on Fleet Street, shopping in Federal Hill or trips to the Pratt library.
But their own bookshelves are well stocked -- including copies of Laura Lippman's mystery novels set in Baltimore.
"We started reading those right away," said Shepard. "We wanted to know about our new hometown."
And have they been watching The Wire, too?
"No" said Shepard. "We want to like our city."
susan.reimer@baltsun.com
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