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When we started looking for new states to live, I would not have originally put Minnesota on our short list.
Somehow, when we started looking at places to live outside of California, we found ourselves eschewing neighboring Nevada and Arizona because of their hot, dry climate (and neighboring Oregon because of its political climate). One of the things we look for in a new home state is proximity to a Renaissance Faire. We want to live where we can drive to at least one good one every year, and that was how we found the town of Shakopee in Minnesota: its Faire is at or near the top of several “best renfaire” lists.
And the area around it also appears in rankings among the best places to live in Minnesota. So we took a closer look, and we’re surprised at how it just might work for us. For one thing, we both grew up where it never snows, and I in particular have not enjoyed cold weather in the past. I still don’t remember how I survived the one winter I spent in Chicago. Even my original fictional characters are easily bothered by cold. And don’t ask me how my Warrior of Light traversed the ice sheets of Ilsbarad in Final Fantasy 14: Endwalker. Cold doesn’t bother Mrs. Alias as much; we joke that she’s a polar bear and I’m a lizard.
Notwithstanding, I think I could adjust to a colder climate if we found the right place for us, and we are both in agreement that we don’t want to live in a place that is hotter than SoCal. Every time I think of Minnesota, I think of the famous song lyric from the Soundgarden song “Outshined:” “I just looked in the mirror, and things aren’t looking so good I’m looking California and feeling Minnesota (oh yeah)”.
That Minnesota became the symbol for Chris Cornell’s inner depression is telling, but is it justified? While Minneapolis certainly continues to have troubles, especially in the wake of the George Floyd tragedy, there’s a lot more to the state. I had a friend who moved to the northern part of Minnesota, where he says the people are strongly libertarian, in stark contrast to the deep blue of the state as a whole. It’s certainly a bluer state than we would normally consider as well, knowing the hand that blue state policies played in our own need to leave CA.
But, well, somehow Shakopee is still living in our heads. It’s small enough for our liking but not too far from the jobs and activities of a big city, it’s not too expensive to live there, and it has the kind of food we like. We’ll have to see where our search takes us and where we end up, but even if we don’t land there, we will appreciate Shakopee and how it helped us to look at places we otherwise wouldn’t have.
