I hate the winter.
I’m stuck inside when I’m not working. When I am working I have to work outside in it. I’ve had to work in the cold for 25 years. Before that in the Army there were weeks when I didn’t know when I would be warm again. Even when I’m not working everything I like to do is in the warmer months. So my useful years left consist of however few 3 month periods I have left.
I hate the winter.
I love the beach. I love doing anything to do with the ocean. I prefer heat over cold.
My fiancée lived in Florida for years. Has bad memories from there. So I’ll be staying here in the cold being crippled with property, sales and income tax on my retirement pay.
Yeah, when people pull the ‘dry heat’ thing on me I just tell 'em to ask the next salmon whether it would rather be poached or broiled. It’ll probably say you wind up on the plate either way. Sure, 110 and 10% is better than Atlanta’s 90 and 90 but it’s still 110.
That’s the way to do it. Anybody who doesn’t is foolish. December’s much more pleasant.
I’ve been to Florida a bunch of times for a bunch of different reasons. There are a lot of different “Floridas” that would appeal to different people. It’s a really big state with lots of sun and beaches.
Orlando has Disneyworld and the studio theme parks, obviously, and is very vacation friendly.
I’ve never been to Miami, but I’m sure it’s nice if you have a lot of money.
Tampa looks like something out of a city-builder videogame without and mods or custom buildings.
The Keys seem to have a very laid-back Jimmy Buffet vacation vibe.
@Loach. I feel your pain. I’m not as exposed to cold at work as you are, but when I lived in snow country my attitude matched yours.
There are places between NJ and FL that might be a decent compromise with your fiancée.
Having recently gotten married on the verge of my own retirement, and now dealing with vaguely similar disparities in preferences I will suggest that the smarter move is to get to compromise with her or get away from her while it’s still cheaper & easier.
Living in daily resentment of the limitations your spouse’s preferences force upon you is no way to live happily. Not for either of you. The person unhappy with the logistical circumstances will make the other unhappy just by demeanor no matter how hard they try to suck it up. Retirement should not be just another bout of “Drive on.”
Can you compromise on some other location? There are other states with warm and relatively warm beaches.
I may (or may not) be an oddity in this; but for me, dry heat is worse than humid heat. I’ve been in hot Florida, as well as all too frequently now even here in NY, in 90’s and sometimes upper 90’s humidity, including working outdoors in it; I don’t like it, and I need to be careful not to get heatstroke, but it doesn’t feel like it’s actively trying to kill me. I’ve been in 90’s very dry weather out West and it did feel like it was actively trying to kill me – and not just me, it felt like it was actively trying to kill every living thing within its reach. I was driving with a gallon jug of water next to me and I couldn’t keep enough water in me. I came down over the top of the mountains into fog in western Oregon; I’ve never been so glad to see fog in my life. I hate driving in fog but not half as much as I hated being in that dry heat.
But I hate living like that. I need to be outdoors.
And I like being outside in cold weather, as long as I’m dressed for it. Then come in and sit by the woodstove with a nice warm cat – delightful. Which it wouldn’t be if I couldn’t get out in the cold.
I’ve lived in Florida for almost 40 years and I must say—Florida sucks!
Warm tropical weather all year round, who needs it? If God wanted humans to exist in a warm environment he would have put us someplace warm to begin with.
A plethora of national parks, long expansive beaches and coastal habitats, wetlands, forests, crystal clear springs, scrubland, wet and dry prairies, nature trails, and the dad-gum Everglades!?! Phooey! Gimme concrete cities with grime-encrusted skyscrapers and a Starbucks on every corner any day of the week!
Birds, fish, gators, bobcats, panthers, wild boars, bears, otters, foxes, beavers, manatees—blech! Why can’t wildlife just go back to where they came from?
And how can one enjoy sipping one’s Pineapple Mojito on the beach when your view of the ocean is blocked by scantily clad girls frolicking on the beach all the time?!?
Naw, stay where you’re at. Nothing to see here. It sucks!
Might be happier on the Colorado Plateau, then, specifically Flagstaff. Summers it can get to the 90s during the day but being 7,000 feet cools right down after sunset.
– I did drive all around the country in my 20’s, partly in order to try to figure out where I wanted to settle. I wound up right back in New York; though I think a number of places in the Northeast would have worked.
Of course, it was cooler here at the time; we very rarely got hot nights for more than a day or two running. Now, unfortunately, we do.
Dunno what Dry Colorado is. The Colorado Plateau is a province in the Four Corners area that was pushed up more or less intact when the Pacific plate was subsumed and passed underneath in the Laramide orogeny.
Yeah, I’d think that somewhere on the Texas Gulf Coast would be pretty good for someone who likes it warm, and the further south you go, the warmer it is. Even Houston rarely freezes in the winter (maybe a time or two a year) but somewhere like Corpus probably does it once a decade.
