Searching for Utopia

O.k., well maybe not Utopia, but somewhere different than where we are right now. So I need help from you, dear readers. M. and I spent some time outlining what is important to us, and here's what we've come up with:

My requirements:

- must have long gardening/growing season

[Reasoning: I love having flowers and a lush garden, but I miss being able to grow things that I truly love, like tulips, daffodils, roses & irises]

- needs to have seasonal weather

[As I’ve mentioned before, I love fall & spring, and while the weather here is amazing, all year long, there’s not really any ‘seasons’. And I’d like to be able to see leaves change colors, and even snow on occasion. My first year here, when I went to pick up a Christmas tree, there was someone there picking one out in a bikini top and cut offs.]

- want older neighborhoods with “character”

[I like big, old houses, with quirky features and giant porches]

- must have cultural/arts opportunities

[Museums, art galleries, music festivals, something]

- must have reasonable access to airport (either in city, or within 1-2 hour driving distance)

M’s requirements:

- no more than occasional temperature dips below 20 degrees.

[M. hates cold weather with a passion, and he literally gets respiratory illnesses all the time when it’s cold – so we’d like to avoid it as much as possible.]

- not so much horrible traffic.

[the traffic here is unbelievable. It routinely takes me 1 ½ hours to drive to work – ONE WAY]

- must have some sort of sports (be it major/minor leagues or NCAA)

[He loves baseball (major & minor league), football (I like hockey) and he would watch college sports if there was nothing else, but he’s pretty adamant that there is some sort of sports activity)]

- somewhat “nice” people

[While I realize that there are nice (& not so nice) people everywhere, we’ve had a number of unbelievably horrific experiences here.]

- needs to either be coastal town or have large lake/river system nearby

[He loves to fish, and really loves the ocean, but would settle for a lake]

- no mountains

[He’s not terribly fond of mountains (sigh – I love them), but the whole cold factor is also an issue, and we’re used to living at sea level].

Both of us:

- must have reasonable/low crime rate
- must have good schools (whether private or public)
- must have reasonable career/job opportunities
- must have reasonable home costs.


So with our "demands" does anyone have any suggestions as to what city we should start sending out resumes?