Winter, What Winter?

It’s no secret I live at 8K feet in a small alpine village in California’s High Sierra. I ran the county mental health and alcohol/drug program for many years. During that time, hiring staff was always interesting. Some new hires stuck, but far more ended up in my office a few weeks out explaining that they (or their partners) just “couldn’t live here.” Too high. Too remote. Bad weather. Didn’t realize how tough it would be actually living here…

For me, this highlights the expectation set we bring to the table. I live in Paradise, but it comes at a cost. Most amenities available in even moderate sized urban areas are hours and hours away from here. In winter, the only highway connecting us with the outside world often gets shut down for days, impacting not just us but all the tiny communities strung along Highway 395.

Idyllic for a writer, less so for damn near everyone else, which circles me back to the title of today’s blog post. This is the driest winter I’ve seen here. Rather than snow, we’ve had torrential rain. It matters because the snowpack feeds reservoirs where rain merely runs off into the ocean. It’s been a few years since 2021 when wildfires came within two airline miles of town, and we had the worst air quality in the country for 72 straight days. Since a bevy of evergreens come along with living here, fire is a perpetual concern.

About now, you’re probably asking yourself why anyone in their right mind would want to live here. Clean air, virtually no crime, gorgeous surroundings that nurture the soul. A world class ski area and hundreds of hiking trails that are a mere five-minute drive. Beyond those things, I have developed deep and abiding friendships. When you live in a difficult environment, one where you need occasional help (or your friends do), you drop everything to be there. By contrast, the last place we lived was Auburn, a Sacramento suburb. I barely knew my next door neighbors despite spending a decade there.

Ultimately, we pick our living environment. Sometimes by default, sometimes by a more active process. I know a lot of people who decided to retire in other countries. Most of them are back in the US for a variety of reasons. As hubby and I age, we have begun searching for where to move next before one of us slips on ice and breaks something. We’ve been here a quarter of a century, so not an easy decision making process. And an even less easy “sort and toss” to figure out what we can live without. Turns out, most of it. Unless you ask hubby. He’s a quintessential packrat and wants to keep everything. At the moment, it’s moot since we stopped looking a couple of years back, but I’d like to at least start the process come spring, which is pretty danged close.

Have you engaged in major physical moves? (Of course, you have. We live in a mobile society.) What worked out well? What surprised you? What mistakes would you try to avoid next time?