By marriage rather than choice, I now live in Evansville, Indiana. Evansville is located 4 hours south of Indianapolis, under 2 hours west of Louisville, KY, 3 hours north of Nashville, and 3 hours east of St. Louis. In this location, you're only a matter of a few hours from top-notch entertainment, dining and sports venues. And you have all this while having the luxury of raising your kids in a virtually crime-free zone. Evansville is the third largest city in the state of Indiana, yet has a definite small-town feel to it. Religion and family history are as big down here as the cornfields.
As far as dining, there isn't much in the way of five-star establishments here. Likewise with big-name entertainers or sports teams. We have a frontier-league baseball team that provides a summer full of great family entertainment (Otters) and we have a brand new ice rink and relatively new stadium for our arena football team, the Blue Cats. Evansville is home to Casino Aztar, a now dockside gambling boat. We almost had a new baseball stadium and team too, but it never happened. Former NY Yankee standout Don Mattingly calls Evansville his home and was a supporter of that dream team.
Evansville is home to two very nice universities, the University of Evansville and the University of Southern Indiana, as well as providing our children with many top-notch public schools.
Soccer is very big here, as is golf. Just 20 minutes from here is a Top 100 golf course as rated by both Golf Week and Golf Digest.
Medical facilities are abundant in Evansville. In our city, you're never more than a half hour from anywhere, which is great.
The climate is definitely four seasons here; spring is usually a bit rainy, summers are very humid, fall is ideal, and we normally have enough snow in winter to satisfy those residents who enjoy being cold.
Every fall, Evansville hosts the Frog Follies (an old "cruiser" car show) and also the West Side Nut Club's Fall Festival, the second largest street festival in the US.
Not a bad place to visit and definitely a great place to live.