If you color a map of the USA and fill in all 30 states that I have driven through, it would kind of make a large fat right angle - all but the SE corner. Recently, I have been seriously assessing where --
IF we could move -- would I most like to relocate. There are many things I like about many of those states, but also many things I did not like. Geographically, the place I like best is central Oregon, but ever since it got Californicated, it is socially and politically unacceptable to us. But all the things you have described about EC make it sound like some place worth checking out. Sadly, I doubt we would be able, financially, to make such a move, but it sure sounds nice. Maybe I just have to put it in my wish list that Orygun will revert to the way it was 30, 40, 50 years ago. Yeah, I know... dream on.