In no particular order...
I'm glad to hear that there aren't wierd local rules and laws to contend with. Overall it seems a very sane place (disregarding weird alcohol laws) but you never know.
I'm definitely going to go after a CHL shortly after moving out here... probably immediately after purchasing a can't-get-it-in-CA pistol of some sort. As I've probably mentioned, I live in a part of CA where CCW's are fairly easy to get, but it's still a $400/yr proposition from what I can tell, and I'm just not that civic-minded.
Dragongoddess... I will most likely be driving through at some point... not sure when yet. I love cruising through wide open spaces though... reminds me of going out on the ocean where there's nothing out to the horizon but waves... a great experience IMO.
I'm probably going to pick something closer to town, even on a smaller lot. One fly in that ointment... one of my hobby projects is building an airplane, which involves quite a bit of riveting...
RATATATTAT ... hearing protection, and space or tolerant neighbors, required. In general I'm just hoping to find some place inexpensive even if it means compromizes in drive distance or size of property. I know, that's not very Californian of me... "we" seem to have the habit of buying places that are cheap by CA standards but very expensive in the local market.. I'm not doing that. Two reasons... 1) I'm not selling my CA house/cashing out my equity so no huge cash influx for me so I can't afford to play the drunken sailor, and, 2) TX property taxes. Property taxes here seem... well, they seem absurdly high by Californian standards actually. That's one of my big reality checks so far. Places I've checked in Addison with a $200,000 assessed value have about $5500/yr in property taxes! My place in CA has an assessed value of about $150K and I pay $1800ish/yr... but that's an incomplete picture... the actual value of my place in CA is significantly higher than 150K or even 200K but the assessed value can't go up more than 2% per year (until I sell it) so the fact that I bought 12 years ago really works for me. The taxes on a place in Addison will go up 5-10% per year (assuming the property values go up) so in 5 years that $5500/yr could become $7500 or even $8800!
I guess that's what happens when you don't have an income tax... but it's definitely having a chilling effect on me.
Only problem now is I have another week and a half before I go back to California, and probably another month and a half or two months from then before I actually move... in the mean time I'll have to satisfy myself with the memory of seeing used AR-15's on racks alongside schmidt rubens and muzzleloaders out where anyone can pick them up at Cabela's, and the knowledge that soon I'll be in a place where I'm trusted to buy any firearm the Federal Govt. trusts me to buy.