Lubbock Or Leave It

I believe it was Joe Ely that said something to the effect of "when you leave Lubbock they put a rubberband on your back and it snaps you back".  I left in 1988 to do mornings in Austin and was lured away from Spokane Washington to return in late 1991.  My main reason was to get closer to family.  Now that most of them are gone, I often wonder if there's a place I'd rather be.

Lubbock has a lot of good people and a lot of drawbacks as well.  Lubbock really is a "big little city".  The culture here is near non-existent. The conservative nature of the town can be a little much.  The lack of entertainment options is pretty severe.

Don't get me wrong, we have it pretty good compared with most towns this size, especially towns in Texas. If you like to go out to eat, your options are growing daily.  If you're into sports there's plenty of Tech and high school stuff.  If your kids play sports there's tons of leagues as well.  The town is pretty clean except for the stuff that blows in with the dust.

I'm not unhappy here. I just know that you only have one life and to spend most of it in one place seems to be such a waste.  This leads me to the question, "where would I go?".   I'd love to be near the Pacific Ocean but those areas tend to be way to populated for me.  I'd like to live in a more diversified place like New York, but that seems like a pretty large leap.  I think I'll probably die here in Lubbock thinking about places I could have lived.  What about you?  Where would you move to if you could?