You sound like me.
My best friend and ex-pastor moved out there five or six years ago. My wife works for Alaska Airlines (through next weekend, anyway) so we fly a LOT, being empty nesters. Even though we take a lot of advantage of what the Seattle area has to offer - feeding the seagulls at Ivars, hitting Pike place market before six a.m on saturdays, bicycle commuting, wandering the “little towns” within Seattle like West Seattle, Freemont, Ballard, Columbia City, etc. - we just got tired of the constantly increasing congestion, the ridiculously liberal politics, and the attitudes (as many have noticed, people in other cities are friendly, while people in Seattle are “polite”).
Anyway, of all the places we have visited, the area by our friends house was the first we ever visited that we actually thought we might like to live in. The area is breathtakingly beautiful and the people are unbelievably friendly (and sincere). And the feeling increased with each trip. After about six trips, we found a place that embodied everything we like about the place, and got it for LESS THAN ONE YEAR’S WAGES! The home (small, but very well done and new) and 13 acres costs us only $500 a YEAR in real estate taxes! The roads around this place are what Seattle area bike trails aspire to be. I ramble though.
I’m putting together a youtube video of stills and short videos we’ve taken at the property and on the long drives to the property. I’ll post a thread here to link to it when I complete it.
BTW, if it had not been Kentucky, we were considering Wyoming. I don’t know if we would have gone for all that wind, though...
Just two weeks ago, after passing through Yellowstone via Cody, we drove the "Sweet 16" highway through Ten Sleep Canyon.....I thought that area was more stunning than Yellowstone itself.