Welcome! I'm rather far north and east of you, and have a toddler and a baby on the way, so long-distance travel is not easy right now

. I don't know if it'll help you, but I started a thread a while back to fill with bloggers/youtubers/websites/facebook pages of people in our area doing permaculture: [url=https://permies.com/t/52406/cascadia/Cascadia-Bloggers-Websites-Facebooks-Project]. I know that's not nearly as personal as meeting up with awesome people like Eric and Trinda, but I hope it helps!
Welcome again!