On cars, I agree with what others have said. Although I love my Chevrolet Tracker, it is not four-wheel drive and is pretty much useless in the winter. Even with studded tires, I can get stuck in a shoveled driveway. In order to use it at all, I have load a bunch of heavy stuff in the back to get some weight on it. We have been using my wife's Ford Focus in the winter. On apartments, I love having my own house but apartments are a plus for a lot of people as they get older. Millinocket has one street that has very little on it other than apartment buildings catering to seniors. As people retire here, they tend to sell their homes and move into an apartment. Since most of them were born and raised here, they have friends nearby and they don't have to worry about moving snow or doing maintenance on their homes.
Weight over the rear axles is definitely a good thing when driving a rear-wheel drive vehicle in snow, and I am sure that helped to stabilize your Tracker, @Ken Anderson . When I lived in north Idaho, I only had my little Mazda B-2200 and it was not 4x4 either. I always put on studded snow tires on all four wheels, plus added at least 100 lbs of weight in the back of the truck over the axles. Usually, a heavy bale of alfalfa laid crossways wold do the trick, or sometimes I used bags of feed or even sand when I had that. It was not as good as actually having 4x4 would have been, but I managed to get into town and out the back roads to where I worked every day, and then back home again. Still, if we were to ever move back into snow country, I think that I would rather have an apartment, or at least a house in town, and not have to deal with long driveways and country roads anymore.
When I was working in Ft Morgan, Colorado, I was back andforth betwen Ft Morgan and Cheyenne. Back then I wore long johns, jeans and a down jacket, wore sa down vest about all the time. Of course you have to winterize your vehcles to keep them from freezing up. I guess I have found everywhere I've been there are lots of seniorswho think nothing of the cold mainly because many or most have spent their lives in the mountains or cold climes. Ft Morgan is not in the mountains but it gets plenty cold. When I moved back to Lubbock, Tx the temperature that morning was twenty-nine below zero. Snow was four feet high along the curbs and in the center between lanes. Of course that's a rarity. But you better hurry. It don't take long and the seventies soon become eighties. Much good luck if you do move.
I usually use cat litter. Since cat litter isn't going to go bad, it's something that I would use eventually anyhow and, in a pinch, I could use it to get out of an icy situation.
@Ken Anderson Off-thread, but funny: years ago, when I experimented with dynamite-making, one of the absorbents I used was cat litter. My doctor friend laughed uproariously when I told him about it! Exploding cat $h!t! Frank
Well, we are continuing to pack for northern Colorado...…..with it's blizzards, snowstorms and sometimes pretty freezing temps. But, Colorado and the surrounding northern states offer us much, much more than Florida ever could or, basically, anywhere else. People here are now thinking about hurricane season and wondering what could hit Florida, the Gulf States and/or the East Coast States.
Even though N. Idaho is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful and scenic places I have ever been to, we had two main reasons for coming to Alabama. 1. So Yvonne could be closer to her daughter. 2. Get away from the doggone snow and cold that is in abundance in North Idaho. Note: There were a few other smaller reasons but the two I listed were, for me, the most important ones.
Weird just how many Seniors live in snow areas. When we lived south of Denver, I worked for long-term care company for Seniors and I was pretty amazed at just how many Seniors live in the Denver metro. We had three care facilities that we'd bus people into and Monday thru Friday they all were full. Doctors, nurses, dentist appointments, crafts and lunch for all, for they would all go home. And, all of this went on all thru winter! At the time I left the company, in Oct 2007, they were getting ready to open two more care facilities, one of them being in Colorado Springs.
I think that once a person is no longer working or having to drive every day, that living in a colder climate can be done better than when you are having to be out in it each day. Even though @Ken Anderson works from home, he still has to be outside and shovel his driveway, and drive places through the snow and cold. Someone who lives in a senior apartment and mostly stay inside and have bussing available when they do need to go somewhere does not begin to have to interact with weather the same way that a person who is working , or living in a house, has to do. You are still going to have to be bundled up warm and safe footwear when you do go somewhere in the winter, but at least you do not have to deal with shoveling snow or driving in it when you are in a senior apartment.
Just to let you know, Yvonne, we won't be living in a Senior apartment complex. They are pretty expensive and we checked out a few when we were there last July. We will be renting an apartment in a regular complex, but they still take care of shoveling snow. Actually, we still have our snow scrapper/brush from when we lived there. It's almost unbelievable that we kept our winter parka's and the snow scrapper/brush (two of them) from when we live there. Did we somehow know that we would return? Don't know, but.
Snow and cold don't really bother me. I worked in the weather most of my life and it is mostly a matter of attitude. If you start with the idea that you are going to freeze, that is exactly what you'll do. I learned to "Embrace the Suck" early. The Marine Corp taught me what to call it. Winter is about the only thing in this civilized, homogenized,sissified world we live in that even brushes shoulders with "man against nature" challenge. I have always had a couple of beef and a few chickens, so staying comfortable is not always an option. EMBRACE THE SUCK
Here in Millinocket, we have one street that is almost nothing but apartments. They are not assisted living facilities but when people get older here, they will often sell their house, or give it to one of their children, and move to one of the apartments. Mostly, these are people who grew up here and don't want to move south, where they don't know anyone. One of my next-door neighbors moved to one of those apartments a few months ago. They get to live next door to people they grew up with, and they don't have to do maintenance on their home, shovel driveways and sidewalks, etc. Some of the apartment buildings even have a communal kitchen and dining area where residents can get together, or that a resident can reserve for family dinners and such. Plus, they get to hang out in the same restaurants and shop in stores where people know them. Later... I see that I have already mentioned this in this thread. I'm old. I'm allowed to repeat myself.
I'd venture to say that many, many more seniors age in place and don't bother moving just for the sake of weather. I don't know why anyone would be surprised by the number of seniors living anywhere. If my home was in the north, I'm sure I'd be used to the conditions and would want to remain where things are familiar to me. People unfamiliar with Houston (or the Gulf coast for that matter) often complain about the humidity here. Since I have lived my life in high-humidity areas I'm quite acclimated and when we travel out west I am miserable with the "dryness" of it. My lips crack, my skin itches and I get nosebleeds. So bring on the humidity; I'll take it!!
We have used hand cream here before on our backs, but in Colorado we definitely used it more. Thing is, and I believe I'm mentioned this before, the reason why we left Colorado in the first place...…..I fell in ice/snow that required a rotator cuff surgery and rehab in my right shoulder. We THOUGHT it would be better to move to somewhere with less winter or none at all. At least we wouldn't have to worry about falling in ice/snow. Well, that "thinking" was really, really wrong! On a nice, warm, sunny summer day here in our complex, I fell in our parking lot. That fall required rotator cuff surgery on the left shoulder. So, we had left an area that we really, really liked to first move to Huntersville, NC for a year, then down here. After our trip to northern Colorado last year, attending a good rodeo and Old West Celebration in Cheyenne, Wyoming, we knew we had to move back. The boating and lakes there looked much, much better than any of that we'd seen here.
@Cody Fousnaugh , when are you actually moving?..Last year I thought you said it would be May this year....