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Alaska would be my first suggestion,
PNW will suit your politics much better than UT, WY.
Columbia / Whitefish, MT
Klickitat, WA, (general area) Prineville, OR (General area)
Dayton, OR (Blue Mtns of SE WA and NE OR).
Kettle Falls, Republic, WA
Anywhere in the central valley or foothills of CA will definitely not meet your "average summer highs in the 80's" requirement, as the summer temps in the foothills and valley generally exceed 90 about 75% of the days from June to September (lived there all my life until last year). Also we LEFT CA because of the taxes and high COL, so I wouldn't think that would work for you. It has BOTH fairly high property tax and high income taxes, as well as fairly high sales tax (minimum of 7.5%, up to around 9.25% depending on city/county taxes). In addition the price of property is much higher than most other rural parts of the country, and building permit costs are ridiculous in many counties. Add that to the exorbitant cost for electricity charged by PG&E, which serves much of the state, and you start to get the reasons we left.
Heh. I just filled out some skimpy "name my retirement place" thing and after entering "small town" (which was identified as maximum 200,000 people!) it told me my best place was… Salt Lake City. Yes, that's a small town I must consider.
I just happened to be looking at the real estate ads from yesterday's Redding, CA newspaper and saw a listing for a manufactured home on 5.75 acres here in Redding, just 5 minutes from all the major shopping for only $180,000. When I say major shopping, I mean Costco, Walmart, Target, Winco, a mall with the normal stores like Sears, etc. And several hospitals, vets, on and on:
Of course you can expand the search to see if you can get what you want - maybe you don't want a manufactured home. Another one popped up when I put in $200,000 max - 10 acres with a Redding address.
Lots of recreation right outside of town. BUT, it's damn hot in the summer.
I did take a gander at Medford, OR for you. Heard it's not bad. But, on Wikepedia it said they get horrendous fog. But, Ashland, which is only around 20 miles away, doesn't have that problem.
For grins, I thought I'd see if anything popped up for around $200,000 in Ashland, OR. I don't know about medical facilities or shopping for Ashland. I've only stopped and stayed in Ashland once, and LOVED it, though. I wanted to stay in CA, as I get better benefits here - CA supplements Social Security, and has better medical benefits for me (I'm on SSI).
If you search within Ashland for 5+ acres for the same price, you get nothing. If you expand the search to 5 miles you get these:
So, it's not as expensive right outside Ashland as I thought it would be. The stats say they get something like 100 days of precipitation, but not that much accumulated rainfall. So, lots of cloudy misty days, but much cooler than Redding.
200,000 is a small town? I wonder what they would call where I live now which is a city of about 10,000 people. Or my old city of 8,000. Buyer beware of these survey type articles.
Heh. I just filled out some skimpy "name my retirement place" thing and after entering "small town" (which was identified as maximum 200,000 people!) it told me my best place was… Salt Lake City. Yes, that's a small town I must consider.
I live in a small town (2500). That would make every town in Nebraska a small town except Omaha.
Everyone wants to live in Paradise, but Paradise is expensive.
You like the outdoors. Try a town in/near the Blue Mountains or near the Wallowa Mountains in E. WA and E. OR. Long, hot summer days; cold summer nights; Winter is about 3 months long. Elk hunting is great. A few towns tolerate hipsters. The Blue Grass Festival in Weezer, OR ain't that far away. Double-wides are reasonably priced
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