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After my trek across the US, I would opine that those towns exist more in the south and central/midwest. My stay in Vermont left me with the realization that Vermonters overall are cold and borderline xenophobic.
Probably not what the OP had in mind but I like the towns in the Santa Cruz mountains. Felton, Ben Lomond and Boulder Creek.
Weather is great, can get away to the beach, can still get decent food and close to top medical care in Silicon Valley. People are pretty weird but that has been my experience with any mountain folk. I'll take leftover hippies over meth using white nationalist survivalists any day...
A new place I hadn't been before this past summer was Ruidoso, NM. That seemed nice but a little too remote for my tastes.
I've lived in Bozeman, which is sort of a mountain town, and spent a lot of time in smaller mountain towns. One thing I haven't seen mentioned about small mountain towns is that food is typically very expensive and not that great.
If everyone who wants to live in such a town actually moved to one, those quaint little <1,000 residents Xmas story type towns of the 1940 era "It's a wonderful life" movies would vanish and become 50,000 resident cities.
A lot of the old towns which originally had quaint, lovely town squares with the little 1 and 2 story brick shops saw devastating changes in the 1970s-1990s when these old Victorian era shop fronts were seen as way outdated, long past their time and ugly, new merchants came in and "modernized" the fronts in a hodge-podge of horrible mirrored glass, T-111 siding, plastics and essentially ruining the character of the whole block.
Even my small towns' pop <1,800 square saw this happen, a lovely old brick building was torn down and replaced by an ugly modern 1 story modern bank, several 1890s era store fronts hide behind 1970 era dime store type coverups and so it goes.
The quaint little Victorian squares you see in movies are very often studio creations, or on-site temporary coverups to hide the modern junk.
That covers the architecture, as far as the people go, most people these days do not stay in one place, one house, one career for 30,40, 50 years like our ancestors did, they don't buy a house AS a home any more, today people buy a house as an "investment" so they can sell it in 5 years and move to another one.
Thus, what you get today in a town or city is a constant turnover of residents, the same homes being listed on the market every few years over and over again, stores changing hands every few years too.
Then you get what you have in the big cities- people don't even know the name of their downstairs neighbor in the same apartment building, nor do they even care because they know that tenant will be gone and replaced by yet another one.
Once a town gets above about 15,000 or so residents, then you get big changes at City Hall with hiring more people who don't know you from a hole in the wall, and then the huge number of regulations come in to the point where you almost have to get a permit to flush the toilet and the "lawn police" ticket people if their grass is 1/2 inch too tall or their garbage cans are visible or not the right color...
Julian, California, in central San Diego County, is a charming, historic gold-mining town of about 1,500 people in the nestled in the Cuyamuca Mountains, surrounded by apple orchards and pine forests. While it is private and quite a drive from the population center people call "San Diego," it has most everything one needs (including a good public library) and plenty of things that are just plain nice — such as four distinct seasons, charming architecture, a few good restaurants and a couple of hotels for visitors. Skiing is available in the winter and some tourists visit Julian because it is a bird-watchers paradise. Unlike most California gold-rush towns, Julian was never abandoned and has always thrived mostly because of surrounding agriculture. Although it can be a tourist destination, it's by no means overrun with lookie-loos. Julian, California - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
If you would consider something bigger (5,000 people), with a student population, and more months of hard winter than Julian offers, Gunnison, Colorado, calls itself "The Base Camp of the Rocky Mountains." It's a very traditional-looking historic town with a mining tradition surrounded by ranches. It's the home of Western State Colorado University, now rated as one of U.S. News' "100 Best Colleges in the West." The huge number of surrounding aspen trees give Gunnison a colorful autumn and then winter sets in and the snow falls and lasts awhile. Snowmobiling, cross country skiing, back country skiing, ice fishing, ice skating, hunting, and snowshoeing can be had at the public Monarch Ski Area or the private Crested Butte Resort. But Gunnison remains in many ways a small town with only a weekly newspaper and an annual community rodeo. If you go to the Cattlemen Inn early enough, you will see actual cattlemen gathered for a big breakfast before they go about their day. Gunnison, Colorado - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
If your wife would like her winter snow to arrive in inches rather than feet, small charming towns can also be found in the mountains of Arizona. The town of Jerome, AZ — midway between the cities of Sedona and Prescott — has been designated a National Historic Landmark and the restoration of its historic buildings seems to be one of its major preoccupations. It's a place you could get in early and be part of something vibrant and growing. By its own description, "Jerome’s personality has changed dramatically in the past 30 years. Once a thriving mining camp between the late-1880s and early 1950s, Jerome is now a bustling tourist magnet and artistic community with a population of about 450. It includes a modicum of artists, craft people, musicians, writers, hermits, bed and breakfast owners, museum caretakers, gift shop proprietors and fallen-down-building landlords." The community is also the home of a thriving winery, a state park, some boutique hotels with mountain views (including the lovely Jerome Grand Hotel), and several good restaurants to attract tourists to its more than 30 (!) galleries and other historic sites. Jerome makes a big deal about Halloween (great weather then) and celebrates Christmas the whole month of December with lights, caroling, shopping, and a very festive atmosphere. Jerome Arizona
Bisbee, AZ, the county seat of Cochise County, AZ, is nestled in mountains 92 miles southeast of Tucson and 23 miles from historic Tombstone. Bisbee is another mining town co-opted by creative and adventurous types looking for a place to live where they can do their own thing and enjoy a community of fellow non-conformists. Since the 1960s, the almost- abandoned town has grown to a population of about 6,000. It's a fun, vibrant place to live and real estate prices today are among the state's stablest. Laid out long before the automobile was invented, Bisbee is very walkable, although hilly. Most architecture is Victorian, although the Court House is a beautiful Art Deco building. The restored, historic Copper Queen Hotel (said to be haunted) is the center of a town with surrounded by interesting businesses and activities like a local theater group, bands playing in bars, the Arizona Cactus Botanical Garden, and the Southeastern Arizona Bird Observatory. Bisbee has a semi-pro baseball team called the Bisbee Kings, several breweries and wineries, and many art galleries, as the town is home to dozens of visual, performing, and literary artists. Novelist J.A. Jance has set one of her most popular detective series in Bisbee. The town has been declared by AARP to be one of the "most alive places to retire" in the U.S. and Bisbee was recently a runner-up in a national survey of "quirkiest American towns," as witnessed by the beloved Shady Dell resort. Bisbee, Arizona - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Shady Dell |
Sounds like the op can't wait for his granny to die.
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