I just remembered you guys were thinking about moving to Ketchikan Alaska!

Pasadena
Woodland Hills
LA
Santa Ana

You've got a lot of living options living in the "greater LA area". Traffic can be nasty, but everyone drives (unless you have a train option, whcih is fantastic but small). Santa Ana is central to a lot of areas and you can get there fairly easily from the coastal communities (where I prefer to live). Pasadena is a great town with lots of cool little communities surrounding it. Woodland Hills is a mystery - as is most of the Valley.

ALL of these areas have both good and bad neighborhoods within easy commute and 2 have public transportation options (depending on where the court is is LA).

Portland
Portland is a nice city, but smaller in feel than Seattle. I wouldn't be opposed to living there, but it is not in my top 5.

Honolulu
At least it is on the Big Island so the island fever would be less. I'm not sure I could live on an island, though.

Fairbanks
Anchorage
Juneau
I've never been to Alaska, but I think it would be a nice adventure.

Oakland
San Fran
San Jose
The bay area is expensive but nice.

Missoula
Boise
Billings
More adventure. Hell, for a year or two, I'd move just about anywhere.

Ah, yes, the year of exploding job offers in the early 90s recession. The firm that had offered me a job fell apart. I then accepted a clerkship offer from a superior court judge in Ketchikan, which would have meant another year of long distance relationship idiocy with my wife, who had a job in San Francisco. But we were prepared to do it. Then, the judge called me and said that because the price of oil had dropped, there was a real danger that the position would be eliminated. Unemployment was something I couldn't gamble with, so I got a research attorney job that came up at the San Francisco Superior Court. A year later, a law school friend of ours who had been laid off got the Ketchikan job, went up there for a year and had a great time.

Wow, and here I thought things were leveling out. :(

Shows how much I know. Makes moving away all that much more appealing.

They are, but that only started about 8 months ago (you know, right when we put ourselves in massive debt to buy our place).

Yeah, I did that back in '92 - bought right before a big dip :(

I would be miserable if I had to move to Medford, OR. It is hot, dingy and the politics are not something I would want to be in the middle of. It is near nothing of any importance except the Shakespearean Festival. The mountains are nice but you can find mountains anywhere. The only reason we ever go down there is when my husband races his car, which thankfully we haven't had to do this year!!

Please mark that one off of your list.

A college roommate was from Medford via Santa Clara, CA. The Shakespeare Festival is IT which, for the townies, means getting to know people like David Ogden Stiers. Also, let's not forget that Harry & David is hq'd there and has an outlet. Shakespeare and Pears You Can Eat with a Spoon at off-price - not too shabby.

I like the CA Bay Area, but most of it is very expensive. Alex summed it up pretty well in his posts.

Is the Northeast pretty much out?

Honolulu is on Oahu, not the Big Island. A grand circle trip around Oahu is about 70 miles (though that requires taking some surface streets so you can delude yourself it is longer since it will take longer.

At the moment I'm concentrating on west coast and places where I have family (Des Moines and Orlando) and actually spent time. Anything 2nd circuit area (New York) faces the same competition challenges as the 9th.

But, that's why I'm also looking for recommendations. If there's some place not on the list that you think is amazing, please tell me what it is and why it's amazing.

In a normal job search process I'd apply various places, go on interviews, and if I got an offer, take a few days to consider it, explore the area, etc... If I get a clerkship offer, I won't have that luxury. One is expected to accept any offer if one is given - and they can come as early as during the interview. It's considered bad form to even take 20 minutes to call your family. So I have to be absolutely okay with living in any of the cities to which I send applications.