Well Come Back, Cormac.
I live in Durham, NC, now myself. Like you I lost my old after the work was completed (laid-off).
I have been wanting to play some RPGs ftf, but not having a vehicle makes it difficult at best.
As tulgurth said, I have used realroleplaying.com to play pbp. But with the mapping job I had in the Great Smokey Mountains, I was unable to continue due to the fact that were mapping in places where there were no signals. And by the time we got back to the hotel, I was too tired to logon. Mostly we would simply drink an ale or two or three to put us to sleep for the next day. And when we were home, we were only there a day, maybe a day and half, then we had to travel back out.
I have been talking to about three persons who seem interested in learning RPGs. The only turn off is that it can take several days to get characters created since these guys are complete newbies. They have never played a RPG ever.
Good Luck.
rmfr