Just Dreaming Out Loud on a Gloomy Friday Morning

Merciful Zeus, I'm so late getting anything posted today, y'all probably gave up on me. I've actually been up for a little while, but I got lost on a fascinating website called Find Your Spot. This time of year, when it goes all cold, and gray, and virtually sunless in my little corner of the world, J and I always start dreaming about moving somewhere else, specifically somewhere winter isn't such a grumpy bitch. For now it's just a dream, but who knows about the future. Find Your Spot is a website that takes you through a long list of questions about what's important to you about where you live - climate, economy, job opportunities, government, cultural opportunities, religion, schools, housing costs, crime rates, education - all sorts of things, and then generates a list of two dozen US towns and cities it thinks you would like based on your answers. I had a few oddball things thrown into my results, like Las Vegas showing up in the #5 position. (Las Vegas? Really?? I can't even imagine!) But my overall results can be pretty much summed up by the top three recommendations: El Cajon, CA (near San Diego), Alexandria, LA, and Honolulu, HI. Nineteen out of twenty-four of my results were towns or cities in California, Louisiana, or Hawaii! Nineteen out of twenty-four, y'all! Hhhmmmm.... Sadly, unless we come into an unexpected and HUGE windfall of the spendable green stuff, I don't see California or Hawaii ever being an option for us. The cost of living is way too high in those two states compared to what we're used to here in little ol' Kentucky. But I find it interesting that Louisiana showed up so often. I wouldn't have thought to single out that state in particular as opposed to so many other states in the southeast (which IS, in fact, a region of the US I really like), but Alexandria is a town where J has done some contract work in the past and he really liked it there. Oh yeah, and the average cost of a house in Alexandria is $135K as opposed to ~$500K in the other two top spots on my list. Ahem. Oh well, just dreaming out loud...for now. Meanwhile, I have to admit our little corner of Kentucky has some pretty days, even on the dark side of the year. Here's a glimpse of one of them: "Autumn Pond" (clickable)