From my perspective, having grown up in TX, with DW from Nebraska, and children in ID and IN:
Grew up in TX and still have family there, but not likely to convince DW to move to a place with heat AND humidity.
Lived in Colorado Springs for 6 years and liked it. That was 30 years ago, though. Times have changed and there's too many people with the liberalish Front Range politics. Cost of living is sky high. I almost took a job last year with the Air Force there, but couldn't make it work financially.
Lived in Sacramento for 4 years and liked it. That was 25 years ago and times have changed. That place has gone bananas. Even back in the late-80's we decided that CA was a great place to visit but we didn't want to raise a family there.
Lived in Nebraska for 20 years and enjoyed it. I still consider myself a Nebraskan, but never got used to the taxes. My FIL said I would, but I didn't. Left there after 20 years once the kids married and moved away. In-laws still live there and we visit a couple times a year.
Lived in southern NM twice for 6 years total, and loved it. We lived near the mountains and could be at 9000' in 30 minutes. The dry heat was fine. Probably wouldn't move back there, though. We loved living in the small-ish town that we lived in (<30k). Las Cruces was an hour away with a population of 300k+.
Moved to northern UT to be closer to my son and his family. Love that aspect of this area, plus the camping opportunities. Still working for the Air Force here. 3M+ people all crammed into the Wasatch front. In 2 and 1/2 years, our health has taken a nose dive because of the air pollution. Big city drivers are insane. Cost of living is insane.
Now onto to our next adventure in northern MT in May. Yeah, bitter cold, but NE had that. Looking forward to a small town and clean air. Will be working for another government agency. Twice as far from our son, but drivable in a day. We may buy a house and settle there. Low taxes (no sales tax) and ranked #5 overall by statetaxindex.org. If we don't like it...well, onto the next adventure.