[ThirdOfFive]

I hail from Minnesota, "the state where nothing is allowed" according to a radio pundit up thataway. Just a few advantages of being a card-carrying Floridian as opposed to a former Minnesotan...

Florida has NO STATE INCOME TAX. Minnesota taxed everything, including being one of (I recall) only three or four states that taxes 100% of retirement income.

Florida has SUNSHINE just about every day and warm temps are the norm. Mark Twain once observed that "Minnesota has 51 weeks of winter and one week of bad skiing" each year. He's uncomfortably close to being right. He also said that the coldest winter he ever spent was a summer in Duluth.

You can fish for free in Florida if you're age 60 or over. Used to be that way in Minnesota too, but over the years the minimum age went up-and up-and up. Now, it's 90! I'll be lucky, assuming I ever reach that age, that I even would know what a fishing rod is for.

Florida doesn't have to worry about winter driving conditions. In Minnesota, for the first couple of significant snowfalls every year (November, sometimes earlier) the freeways around the Twin Cities Metro resemble gigantic pinball games.

People are NICE in Florida (most of the South, actually). I never tire of waitresses or store clerks calling me "sweetie", "honey", etc. Some of them actually hug you. Back in Minnesota, often as not, a query directed to a waitress or store clerk gets you a two-word reply with irritation peeking out from just below the surface. Don't see that in Florida.

There are no words in Floridian (Floridese?) for snow shovel, ice scraper, or driveway salt.

One of the favored festive dishes in Minnesota is lutefisk (A.K.A. "Sewer trout"). Florida food on the other hand is not so repulsive that you have to pretend you love it just so your host isn't insulted.

"Stand your ground" is far better than "turn around and run like hell".

Temperatures in Florida are just numbers. In Minnesota, often as not from November through April, when the guy on the radio gives the local temperatures they are always prefaced with either "above" or "below" zero.

You don't have to chop a hole through two feet of ice to go fishing in Florida.

There is no football team in Florida called the Minnesota Vikings.

Minnesota has some beautiful lakes. But you can only see them for half of each year; the rest of the time they resemble snow-covered fields.

Florida has visible, and apparently effective, law enforcement. In Minnesota--well, let's just say it is neither one.

Florida has a tremendous number of varied and authentic ethnic restaurants. In Minnesota "fine dining" is often as not limited to Applebee's or Red Lobster.

Probably many more such reasons. But we've been here for two years now and we're more convinced than ever that we made the right move.