On Monday, I wrote about summer winding down here in the high country. Our weather forecast for next Monday and Tuesday predicts hard freezes for both evenings, lows to go down to 24 on Tuesday, September 8.
Officially summer doesn’t end until September 22, the date of the autumnal equinox. Hard freeze during late summer? Yep, as noted earlier, we get a short growing season at this 6000 ft. elevation, many years it’s 50-60 days between last frost of spring and first frost of autumn.
While our summers are comfortable, our winters are truly long. The DrsC spend half of spring, the short summer, and half of autumn here, and skip the long winters.
A fair number of life-long residents do the same, when they too have retired and don’t have to soldier on through the winter. Many go south in an RV or have a winter place in St. George, UT, Mesquite, NV, or Mesa, AZ.
Where we lived during our working years in CA was just the reverse, long summers, short winters. Highs in the 90s start in May and wind down in October, lots of 100s in midsummer.
Back in the days before air conditioning CA Central Valley locals who could afford it had a summer place up in the Sierras. Some still do. Mom and the kids summered there, dad came up on weekends and his vacation.
In this they resembled the British in India who had “hill stations” like Simla to retreat to during the heat. The DrsC once retreated to WY for cool summers, now in retirement WY is home and we winter where it’s warm.
