Welcome, Maggie! Wife and I (her 72/me 71) returned to Colorado after spending 1 year in Huntersville, NC and 10 1/2 years in Jacksonville, Florida. Actually, after those 11 1/2 years gone from Colorado, couldn't wait to get back. No more high humidity/heat, tropical storms or hurricanes. However, here we have beautiful lakes, Rock Mountain NP, beautiful wildlife (deer/elk) and, of course, winters with snow. Just turned out the neither of us are the "Southern" type of people. Even though we don't live it, we love the farm/ranch lifestyle, livestock, Old West stuff, professional rodeo (that I was a part of for numerous years), powerboating and shooting our firearms at local range. Wife has her own Smith & Wesson 9mm handgun! Very nice group of people here.
There are pluses or minuses to each, and my likes had as much to do with what was going on in my life as to my surroundings, I suppose. I wouldn't want to have grown up anywhere other than where I did grow up, in the UP of Michigan, although it seems to have changed a lot over the decades. I moved to the part of Maine that I am in because it felt more like what I grew up with than my hometown did at that time. Maine is nice, but the winters can be brutal, and it's certainly not a place you want to be if you're not sure you can afford heating fuel. I loved the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, perhaps because it was so different than anything else I had experienced. Temperatures above 100 F were not at all unusual, and it cooled down only by a few degrees at night, but you acclimate to that, so that I wasn't even using air conditioning. I was working as a paramedic there so that probably contributed a great deal to my appreciation for my time in Texas. Southern California weather was near perfect but pretty much everything else sucked (prices, politics, and the concentration of people). Objectively, I suppose I'm happy where I am.
I understand the brutal winters. I used to drive for a living and I've seen most of if not all of the U.S. many times. There is so much beauty from one end to the other. Do you know what's really bad? In the dead of winter, when some states have snow piled 15-20 feet in the air on the corners....the roads were usually clean and taken care of for drivers. I'd be on my way home to the midwest, hit Iowa and you couldn't count the trucks rolled over and the cars in the ditches. I would drive from east to west and north to south but Iowa was one of the worse states for keeping the road safe for drivers. It was crazy. Driving winter after winter, it seemed to be a common thing every time I came back to the midwest. I like to look at snow. My body acclimates to heat much better. I always enjoyed my time in Texas. I cannot even imagine living in the cold of Maine, but I'm sure it's beautiful. Yes, I suppose all of our places have good, bad, and the ugly (prices, politics; etc.). Property taxes here have more than doubled in the past couple of years. I'm glad you're happy where you are. No, I'm not slamming anyone who lives in Iowa, please don't take offense. We're just talking about the climate/weather.
Thank you, Cody. It's nice to meet you. Colorado is beautiful! I would love to learn to shoot someday. Way to go for the Mrs!
I like it here. You have all made me feel very welcome and I enjoy all of the variety of conversations available to participate in.
@Maggie Rose Using of firearms is much like using any useful TOOL, only a bit more exciting. I liken it to driving nails with a hammer: you might hit or miss. Both require skill only acquired through practice. Frank
I love tools! I'm pretty handy with them too. The only one I never really liked was the circular saw. Maybe because it was too heavy, maybe because I didn't have the proper set up when using it. I don't know but I always thought that it was dangerous. I do have a new compound miter saw on my wish list though. I think I could do the gun thing.
@Maggie Rose One's mindset toward firearms must initially be carefully guided to avoid the myriad of misinformation popularly used in "recommendations": for example, confrontation between oneself and an intruder requires immediately shooting the culprit. BIG MISTAKE. Before self-protection purposes become tantamount, "comfortableness" with firearms MUST first become everyday. And, shooting frequently at targets is highly desirable. Best if a personal closeness can be built between individual and his/her favorite home firearm, carrying one outside the home being another ball of wax. Persons raised from early on to fear guns seldom change their minds to beneficial effect, and, indeed, the sage recommending those folks stay away from guns has a lot going for him. If you are truly interested, obtain a copy of "In the Gravest Extreme.....The Role of the Firearm in Personal Protection", by Massad F. Ayoob. It is the most informative book I can recommend, only about 100 pages. Ayoob has an almost stunning history of growing up with firearms, is an ex-Policeman, and "bars no holds". Frank