So I went to www.findyourspot.com and answered questions. Here are the top 24 places that site thinks I should live:
Little Rock, Arkansas
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Salem, Oregon
Eugene, Oregon
Charleston, West Virginia
Shreveport-Bossier City, Louisiana
Corvallis, Oregon
Alexandria, Louisiana
Portland, Oregon
Santa Cruz, California
Monroe, Louisiana
Santa Barbara, California
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Ventura, California
Frederick, Maryland
Medford, Oregon
Baltimore, Maryland
Hartford, Connecticut
Valencia, California (Ironically–this is right around where I was born.)
Providence, Rhode Island
Cape Cod, Massachusetts
Palo Alto, California
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Champaign-Urbana, Illinois
They didn’t have a question for, “Please sweet Jesus keep me away from the bible belt.”
Interesting.
Here’s what it came up with for me:
Alexandria, Louisiana
Portland, Oregon
Little Rock, Arkansas
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Eugene, Oregon
Honolulu, Hawaii
Shreveport-Bossier City, Louisiana
Corvallis, Oregon
Salem, Oregon
San Bernardino, California
Valencia, California
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Santa Cruz, California
Hartford, Connecticut
Medford, Oregon
Charleston, West Virginia
Las Vegas, Nevada
Monroe, Louisiana
Santa Barbara, California
El Cajon, California
Providence, Rhode Island
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Sheboygan, Wisconsin
Natchitoches, Louisiana
I got a question with a map, asking what regions of the US you want to live in. You could use that for “no bible belt”, I suppose.
My top 10 spots, according to them:
Little Rock, AR
Baton Rouge, LA
Portland, OR
Baltimore, MD
San Francisco, CA
San Jose, CA
Providence, RI
Oakland, CA
Washington, D.C.
New Haven, CT
Mine are:
Las Cruces, New Mexico
Las Vegas, Nevada
Portland, Oregon
Corvallis, Oregon
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Ventura, California
Eugene, Oregon [hah!]
Santa Barbara, California
Palo Alto, California
Medford, Oregon
Henderson, Nevada
San Bernardino, California
Valencia, California
Salem, Oregon
Little Rock, Arkansas
Kailua-Kona, Hawaii
Alexandria, Louisiana
El Cajon, California
Sacramento, California
Shreveport-Bossier City, Louisiana
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Reno, Nevada
Carson City, Nevada
Not bad. With the exception of several that I wouldn’t consider because of cost-of-living issues, this is pretty close to a list that I’d have come up with on my own, if I didn’t have to take E’s preferences into account. (I don’t have a strong prejudice against the Bible Belt as long as the town itself is reasonably liberal; in fact, I feel rather drawn to oases — college towns in conservative states, that sort of thing.) Sacramento was fairly high on our list, and I was agitating for the Southwest but got overruled.