Before turning 7 I had lived in CA, Utah, CA again, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, and back again to California.
During my lifetime my county has grown from about 200 thousand to 3.2 million.
IIt is doubtful my wife would leave, since for 53 years of marriage we have been within a mile of the ocean, and I have never lived in a house with AC.
We fight and make up a couple of times a day. I showed her some other places. Aside from the CA coast, she picked St. George Utah and Sedona Arizona. Too hot, and you need AC--so what is the point? To her.
She is already a hot blooded Italian.
@truth_seeker Send her up this way.... The Tetons in WY or ID, the ID panhandle, or Western MT... So long as you can take the Winter... If you are more urban, maybe Spokane Wa, Boise ID, or Missoula MT... Bozeman MT too, maybe..
For me, this right here is the jewel of the world... NW Montana (really Western MT) over through the Idaho panhandle. Of that, maybe the Flathead valley (Kalispell, where I live) and Coeur d'Alene Idaho are the best, though I would rather be up in the Yaak here or over in the Priest River country in ID... That's probably way too wild for y'all.
We are getting too big here... About 40k in Kalispell, and 70-90k in the whole valley (concentrated in Kalispell, Whitefish, Columbia Falls, Bigfork, and Polson), Though deep forest is little more than 10 miles away most anywhere hereabouts. Miles and miles of it.
I don't have air conditioning, nor have I ever, absent a window unit here and there... Even when it is HOT (end of July through August), maybe 2 weeks above low 90's and a day or two here and there, normally, when the sun goes down, so does the temperature. It's 40s and 50s at night... So if you shut the house up in the morning, and close all the curtains where the sun is going to be, and open her up at night, the house stays nice till late afternoon... with an ice cold lake or river never too far away. So worst case scenario, a couple weeks of evening fishing...
It's really about the winter, but if you live in town, and have a decent snow blower, it ain't all that.
If you are a rancher or a gentleman rancher, figure on a snow plow for the pickup and a good tractor with a loader and/or blower... Necessities.