However, I almost would enjoy living somewhere really modern like LA or Seattle for awhile.

Chris

Ya, I hear you... I really want out of AZ, debating whether to move back to Denver, or to Seattle, or to Pittsburgh. My Mom is 78, still in good health, but I'd like to see her more often...feeling guilty about living 2000 miles away, remembering 10 years ago being 1500 miles away when my Dad had cancer, feeling like I didn't see him often enough his last years.

Pittsburgh is only 75 miles from the farm and my Mustang. Columbus and Cleveland are 100 miles away. Columbus and Pittsburgh seems to have a pretty decent job market for my thing, still seeing a good number of posts on Dice and Monster, even in this economy. My sister is even wanting to get out of AZ and CA, looking at a 3 yr contract with the State of Ohio in Columbus.

Edited May 27, 200916 yr by Cubical

Ya, I hear you... I really want out of AZ, debating whether to move back to Denver, or to Seattle, or to Pittsburgh. My Mom is 78, still in good health, but I'd like to see her more often...feeling guilty about living 2000 miles away, remembering 10 years ago being 1500 miles away when my Dad had cancer, feeling like I didn't see him often enough his last years.

Pittsburgh is only 75 miles from the farm and my Mustang. Columbus and Cleveland are 100 miles away. Columbus and Pittsburgh seems to have a pretty decent job market for my thing, still seeing a good number of posts on Dice and Monster, even in this economy. My sister is even wanting to get out of AZ and CA, looking at a 3 yr contract with the State of Ohio in Columbus.

You already know how I feel about a bleak landscape, though I have a friend who moved to LV to buy the house she could never afford in SoCal...where I knew her from college.

For me, most of California is too parched. I drove through Walnut Creek (SF East Bay) this past weekend and thought "WTF, too pricey for being this brown and this hot." I've also never liked what some people think is cool - Sedona or Santa Fe - not my vibe.

Of those you mentioned, I've only driven through Columbus and I've heard good things about Cleveland and that its suburbs on the lake are nice. Of those in the OH-PA area, I would say Pittsburgh is the nicest. I know 3 Californians that moved to very green PA and like it -- didn't come back. Personally, I go ape-$h! over a full-brick home set in trees...and that's what I had in ATL.

As for DEN and SEA, I saw DEN from the air in February and it's way too brown. SEA is gorgeous, since it's all cut up by water, but expensive and I didn't like the anti-Calif. sentiment there. Plus, all PNW and large Colorado cities attract too many granolas and spandexed bikers...who all think they are "too cool for school."

Your field is marketable, so you know best where you need to go.