We're still busy researching cities in order to find our future home town!? Our original list of potentials is now more of less narrowed down to a few select areas. That's not to say that we're not still open to further suggestions. (See here for our desires in a new home town.)? At the moment, of the cities/regions remaining on our "active" list, the Ashland, Oregon area is looking fairly attractive. So, we thought we'd take a moment to ask a few questions about Ashland. But first, here's why...

Originally, we felt highly drawn to Corvallis, Oregon. It seemed like the absolute perfect place for us -- a phenomenal homeschooling / unschooling community (which is what first caught our attention), a progressive / artsy atmosphere, affordable land, and super-clean air. Great, right ! ?But then we looked at the amount of sunshine the city received ... hmmm, no improvement whatsoever over Pittsburgh (in fact, Corvallis is, unfortunately, equally as gloomy -- at 44% of the days having sun).

Ashland seemed generally similar to us in terms of atmosphere, only it is situated further south and a bit more inland (further east). This geographical difference actually translates into around 40 more days of sunshine per year (198 days/year in Ashland as compared with 159/year in Corvallis). Not the best, but perhaps livable for us. However, we still have a few concerns, so we're looking for any opinions on the following topics:

• We're particularly interested in finding out about temperatures in Ashland, and what the seasons are like in there (especially the winter). How gloomy is it in winter there?
• Ashland ranked a little low in terms of air quality. Anyone know why? Are there any industrial places nearby polluting the air? Are there forest fires in that area a lot? (Some of the Northern CA cities we were considering ranked a bit low on air quality, and we eventually traced the problem to wildfires.)
• What is the "teen scene" like there? What do teens in Ashland do for fun?
• What else can you tell us about Ashland? Anything else we should know about that area?