Thanks for all the feedback, I appreciate it. It's too much to reply to all of it, but I read and am incorporating all the info posted into the decision making process. Thanks, guys.

quote:

Originally posted by Boss1:
Politics aside, IMHO, as others have indicated, the summers in the south can't be understated. If you've lived in WA all your life and never experienced a July/Aug. in the south, it can be a MAJOR adjustment.

I'm an El Paso native and lived in Florida for three years, where I met my wife who lived there all her life, so it wouldn't be a complete shock to either of us. However, a few months ago, we visited central Washington and went on several hikes in the desert and my son was turning red and just about collapsing in high 90's with dry air. If we move, hopefully he's young enough that he'll easily adjust, but it is a consideration.

quote:

Originally posted by Boss1:
If you're willing to tolerate the politics longer, you could look at areas outside of Seattle. Can you work remotely? Or some driving and/or ferries gets you to some considerably better places.

Without getting too deep into it, this isn't going to be an option for us. We've lived in Issaquah, Renton, and now Kent. None of it is Seattle proper, but if we're going to move, I want to be out of King County. If I have to move that far, might as well just get out of the state and be done with it rather than increments. If our house burns down in the wild fires, moving will be really cheap, so there's that at least.

C1steve, I have my fingers crossed for such things happening, but I'm not going to count on it. Even if a lot of gun laws change at the federal level that pre-empts the states doing certain things, there's still so many other reasons to get my son out of this area. This kind of relates to what 46and2 and ruger357 were talking about. Anymore, I think it might actually be better to raise my son in a "time bubble" kind of place. If Seattle is a fine example of 21st century progressive woke living, then I want "time bubble."

We'll see what shakes out. I'm not really sure what kind of timeframe we're working with here, but we're definitely in the "we need to look into these places and make some preliminary decisions" phase.

Huntsville and surrounding North Alabama (Decatur, Athens, Priceville, madison,) are great. Lived here forever and have my business and family here. It meets your criteria. If you are in the IT industry feel free to email me if you like. Good luck on the change.