I think you'd do just fine down this way... I'm located about 45 minutes north of Huntsville, in Columbia, Tennessee. Twenty-five years ago, GM built its Saturn plant in my county. We had a huge influx of people move here from all over the country, but most were from the northern states. The ones that had trouble adapting were the ones that moved in with a prejudiced attitude of "these people don't know how to do anything down here and we are saving their economy by moving here." I witnessed one incident in which a new resident, a woman with a heavy Michigan accent, refused to provide identification to the young lady ringing up the woman's groceries when the woman presented a check for payment. She told the young lady "You don't understand - I'M A SATURN WIFE!" At that, the young lady responded "Ma'am, I don't care if you are the Pope, if you are writing a check in this store you will present your identification or you will not leave with the groceries." That attitude was present in quite a few folks, and it did nothing for the goodwill between long time residents and the newcomers. BUT, it was not that way with all of the new residents... I noticed a pattern... This is what I figured out: it was not so much a "north versus south" situation as it was a "moved from a big town to a small town". Small town people get along with other small town people...
On my road, we have many folks that moved here with Saturn. The ones that moved here from small towns fit right in and are just as friendly as can be. We all wave at each other as we pass in our vehicles... (That is something that you might or might not have to get used to: people that don't even know you with throw up a hand and wave at you through the windshield as you meet on the road.)
On the weather... We don't really get that much snow down here. We do (regardless of what the image may be) get the occasional 6-8 inches of snow every 3-4 years, but that is the exception not the rule. NOW... What we do get in the winter is ice storms. They're pretty... About 1/4 inch of ice on everything, from the freezing rain that occurs when the temperature drops during the winter. It's not that "we don't know how to drive in the snow" as is often stated... It's that no vehicle does well on ice. (I heard "you people just don't know how to drive in the snow" quite a bit when Saturn first got here... Then, when the first ice storm hit, I turned on my scanner and heard about the big multi-car pile up on the ramp that went into the Saturn plant. It didn't take long for newcomers to realize that not everything they had been told about the south was true.) One thing that will probably shock you though: when we do get snow down here, most everything stops... Schools close down here on snow days that would just seem to be another day with snow up north. We tend to take things a little slower, and tend to lean toward the "my life, and mitigating the possibility of accidents, is more important that getting to (fill in the blank here)."
Come on down... I think you'll not be disappointed.
Raven6
BTW: Make sure you don't get off on the wrong foot with anyone by using the phrase "Well, in Pennsylvania, we do it this way..." People down here are big on tradition, and don't want to hear about how someone else does it. If you have a better way of doing something, just stay quite about it and let people see it done as opposed to telling them. We are proud, but not stupid... We will adapt better ways of doing things - we just take someone telling us how they do it elsewhere as an afront to the way we currently do it.
Thank you for the info. While I’ve lived in big cities, I will always be a small-town person, so I think I will like it there. I will definitely keep in mind the tradition part.