If that's what you want and you don't mind shit weather, move to Ithaca, NY. I saw what the Valley had to offer when I worked at Apple and came away with the same grumblings you mention.
Upstate New York in general is a great place for the kind of living you describe. For not much money you could buy - or even better build - a home in the middle of nowhere with a 30 minute drive into town with very light traffic most times of the day. Like you say, everything you need is relatively close, and Amazon Prime still delivers in 2 days.
The weather wouldn't bother me, but I wouldn't be able to move out of SV without giving up my current job and salary. That's the part I'd like to change - I want to separate the decision of where to work from the decision of where to live. Once I can do that, there are a lot of places that I would be interested in moving to.
Upstate New York in general is a great place for the kind of living you describe. For not much money you could buy - or even better build - a home in the middle of nowhere with a 30 minute drive into town with very light traffic most times of the day. Like you say, everything you need is relatively close, and Amazon Prime still delivers in 2 days.
You just have to put up with the weather.