By the time you winterize your home, put your business on hold, make arrangements to pay all the bills that continue even if you are gone, pack everything up and make arrangements somewhere else, the weather changes and it isn’t that bad, any longer.
Our county has under 30k people. The county seat has 4k. We are 45 minutes from a town of 50k.
This is hype. I am quite a ways south of Duluth. I have been here for 36 years. We have had 3 straight weeks before of double digit below zero, day and night. This has been a relatively mild winter and I can see it in my December electric bill, represented by the number of nights I did not have to plug in extra electric heat in the cellar to protect the pipes. We have used about 50 gallons of propane so far in the past month, mostly to heat water. We heat mainly with wood. My indulgence is a 300 watt radiant heater set under the computer desk. I love it.
We dress for the weather. Indoors, it is not uncommon to be wearing 2 pairs of varying weight long underwear, 2 pairs of sox, sheepskin house shoes, flannel-lined jeans and a heavy sweatshirt.Once it gets to zero or a bit above, you can actually go outside dressed like this to get the mail or wood. When it’s colder, you throw on a lined, hooded jacket over all the other stuff.
We are prepared. We are used to it. And we are really happy that we live at least 1/4-1/2 mile away from anyone else. There is a purity and a certain sort of silence you will only experience in a rural Northern winter and we like it. The miracle of Spring, which occurs right after mud season, is doubly appreciated, as well.
We spent one entire winter in Florida. It was ok. Too many people, too much traffic, too much smelly stuff in the air and really, too expensive for just daily living, let alone activities. Great place to visit for a couple of weeks and I love the ocean, but just not our sort of place. Over the decades, I have watched a lot of folks move South to get away from the cold and then welcomed them back home when they returned, wiser and appreciative of what we have up here.
Thanks for the perspective on living happily in severe cold. I’m a native San Diegan and nothing in my experience compares to that.