I’ve Been Warmer, I’ve Been Colder

This place suits me just fine, thank you

By Jeff Salter

Our Michigan Fox suggested this week’s topic, “Have you ever considered moving to a warmer/better climate?”

When my wife asked me what I was supposed to write about for this blog (and I told her), she just laughed and said, “we left a warmer climate to come here.”

Absolutely true.

Though we’ve lived (together) in NM, CA, central Louisiana, and south Louisiana… we spent 26 years in north Louisiana. In addition, before I married (or otherwise without my wife), I spent 2-3 years in Chicago, 1 year in Iowa, 2-3 years in GA, and one year up in the Arctic. All that’s to say, I’ve been around the block a few times…and I’ve seen weather extremes.

Though I miss a great many individuals in Louisiana – the state where I spent nearly four decades, on and off – I would NOT wish to return there to live permanently.

Perhaps you’re wondering why.

In Louisiana – and I can also speak for Mississippi, since I was born there and visited there MANY times – in the summer it’s oppressively hot and muggy. The winter weather is typically not as cold as further north, but the humidity makes it FEEL colder. Nearly every day, every winter season, for 26 years in north Louisiana, I had to allow nearly 15 minutes every morning to scrape the ice (or whatever it was) off my windshield before I could back out of my driveway.

What about here, in southeastern Kentucky?

I can’t say I enjoy being snowed in – unable to reach the streets and highways – for up to a dozen days each year or so, but all things considered… the cold here in KY is a lower temperature, but does not feel as bone-chilling as it did with all the LA humidity.

And, in my dozen summers here in KY so far), I don’t recall but one really HOT summer when we had temperatures near (or above) 100 for several days. In LA, there were many lengthy stretches of 100+ — and the high humidity made it feel 15-20 degrees more miserable than that.

Now don’t get the idea that I’m dissing Louisiana (or any other “deep” South states). I would not trade having been raised in Covington LA for any other place in the world.

But to answer “would you like to move back to LA because it’s warmer?” I have to reply with a resounding NO. The skeeters alone would keep me out of the state.

Question:

How about you? Any place you’d rather live… because of better weather?

[JLS # 370