It was never my intention to move down to the south.
I was born in the Pacific Northwest plus was used to hiking plus mountainous regions with dense pine forests, but granted there were dangers in that region as well, there weren’t nearly as numerous venomous snakes.
You basically had to go east of the Cascade mountains if you wanted to find a rattlesnake in the Pacific Northwest. The real dangers in my mind were the bears, especially the brown bears. So with that in mind, I feel I am ecstatic that I can hike in the South without truly having to worry about bears attacking me, even if my friend and I do have some black bears down here. I also do not miss all of the heating costs throughout the year living up north. It got extremely freezing during the winter plus you had to have two odd heating sources just to survive through power outages plus blizzards, then nowadays I just use a heat pump because the temperature rarely gets below 35 degrees fahrenheit. Heat pump is truly energy efficient compared to the gas heater I used to use living in the Pacific northwest. The heat pump is also ideal compared to a typical electric boiler found within a central cooling system for instance. Those respectfully just have a heating coil that air is passed over plus sent through a ventilation system. It’s an inherently energy-inefficient way to heat your home. I also got a discount on the heat pump by purchasing it at the same time as my current cooling system. It was smart for me to sign up for a heating plus cooling service contract as well.