Dude, 100% agree.
And yeah, Austin area
They mostly vote dem, which I suppose is as close to freethinking as I'm going to find outside of Berkeley :P
Was also looking around San Marcos, which is about 30 miles south of Austin. In between Austin and San Antonio. Not a bad spot, although I'm guessing the locals are a bit more steriotypically Texan than in the Austin area where they like to "keep it weird".
Also agree with you about the acreage. Don't want to have to deal with neighbors so been looking at the 10 - 20 acres range. With trees preferably.
Anyway, to be honest, if I had 5.7 million dollars I would probably move to Vancouver. But I don't sooo....