Congrats Greg,
The wife and I both retired in early May of this year. That was pretty close to the best thing we ever did. After selling the house, and just about everything else, we headed south to Tennessee and Kentucky in search of land to build on or a existing home and land to buy. We are still down here as I type. Both are nice states with roughly the same cost of living for a retired person. We did find that TN is much more expensive, almost double for comparable properties. An existing home in KY usually comes with a lot more land. I mean a lot more land. Whereas TN was a mountain home on 2 acres, KY is a mountain home with 15,25,40, even 100 acres and all but the last were under 200K. We are looking only in the eastern parts of both states (mountains and views of mountains). We are staying in our camper or with friends while we search. It is pretty cool to have the time and the money to shop around for the "perfect" spot. One home had 28 acres and 9, yes 9, garages (two of which were large pole barns). I made my case to buy that one, but the neighbors were still too close and the view was only in one direction. We are not in a rush so we can take our time. So if you and Mary get a chance to come down here and look around, you won't regret it. NOTE: watch those big time Realestate sites as many of the homes they list have sold a long time ago. We drove two hours to one (we probably would have bought it) only to find that it sold well over a year ago. Anyway, Best of luck to the both of you in all your future endeavors!