My daughter has a chance to move to southern Wyoming. Having never been west of Chicago I have questions.
Is it difficult to acclimate to 6,000+ feet elevation?
Does it snow a lot?
Do the roads get closed?
How about cell coverage?
Sure there will be more.
Moved MPSIMS --> IMHO (without so much as an oxygen tank).
No, not at all. Just take it easy for a few days.
I assume you mean Cheyenne or Laramie. It’ll snow fairly frequently, but usually in small amounts and it will melt off the streets quickly. Dumps of more than six inches or so will happen now and then, more often in the fall and spring than in winter.
Yes, the highways can get closed, less for snow itself than for wind and blowing snow. Visibility can get cut down to darn near zero.
Cell coverage can be really spotty outside the cities and away from the interstate highways. It really depends on the phone company. My Virgin Mobile doesn’t work at all in most of the state.
The hardest thing to get used to is the wind. It blows constantly. There is a huge wind farm just west of Laramie. In the winter, it can be deadly on the roads. I once was driving east on I80 when they closed the road behind me. There were six cars in front of me as we trooped east, and by the time we got to Laramie, I was the lead car. I swear a couple of them got blown off the road - they just started to drift to the right with the wheels still pointing forward.
I grew up in Laramie and just moved back after 12 years away.
It took me a good week to re-adjust to the altitude. It’s essential to drink plenty of water. I also recommend buying a humidifier and using lots of lotion because it’s extremely dry.
Like most of the country, southeast Wyoming had a mild winter this year. As the others mentioned, it’s the wind and blowing snow which most often close the highways. But the sun shines quite a bit, even on the coldest days. That really helps with the winter blahs.
Cell coverage is good in town but very spotty in between towns and in the mountains. Most people I know have either Verizon or AT&T. I had to drop T-Mobile because they don’t have coverage out here.
Wyoming is a very beautiful and unique place, with a ton of outdoor and recreational opportunities. The people here are among the friendliest I’ve ever known. But it does take some getting used to, especially if you are not accustomed to living in a rural place. Happy to answer any additional questions.
Recent thread on Wyoming:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=645108&highlight=Wyoming
Does she like people? Cause, there aren’t any there
Everyone acclimates differently, but usually the worst symptoms disappear in a week, and some do not even experience any symptoms in the 6000 foot range.
For me, there’s a fairly linear cardiovascular diminishing starting at the high 3000’s. The higher I go, the faster my heart beats without necessarily any other feedback telling me that I am overtaxing myself.
But it doesn’t get interesting until I go past 7000’. Then, I get a dull headache that won’t go away for a week.
But like I said, everyone’s different. Some people at least according to wiki can get altitude headaches and other symptoms at less than 5K, while others on this MB report feeling perfectly fine even going directly up to 10K feet from sea level.