I live in a community where about 30-40% of the residents are snowbirds from other parts of the US (mostly states like Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Washington, and Oregon), as well as Canada. This would normally be the time where they would all be flocking back to their primary homes, but this pandemic has forced many, if not all, of them to remain here in Arizona.
As I've mentioned in past posts, we don't interact with our neighbors except for a passing wave if we cross paths. There are various social clubs here, though right now, they're all on hiatus as far as we know. We don't belong to any of them; we're not joiners.
Normally, we secretly root for the snowbirds to go home so restaurants can return to normal, grocery stores won't be so crowded, and traffic will calm down. Except for the restaurant, their extended stay may impact us longer than normal.
Our grocery stores, still depleted of key items a month after the crazy hoarding began, could possibly keep up with the demand from the summer population, but with part-time residents remaining here, they will remain under pressure for the foreseeable future.
I've seen posts by these folks on Nextdoor.com, lamenting about being forced to maintain social distancing and not having their normal lifestyles maintained. After all, why are we paying HOA fees if we can't have access to all the amenities?
I wish I could elicit some sympathy for them, but those of us who live here year-round have to live with these amenities being shut down for long periods of time for repairs or traffic being impacted due to construction projects purposely scheduled for after snowbird season.
We have to live with the extreme heat, the monsoon winds, the hellacious storms, and until recently, the piles of tumbleweeds that would blow across the desert into the neighborhood. And we're not talking about a few of them, either. The first summer here, I piled up enough tumbleweeds to reach above our roofline.
Anyway, this is my own rant about the snowbirds' forced remainder and how we full-time residents have to accept them just as much as they have to accept remaining here despite their personal plans. Let's hope we get through this summer unscathed.
As I've mentioned in past posts, we don't interact with our neighbors except for a passing wave if we cross paths. There are various social clubs here, though right now, they're all on hiatus as far as we know. We don't belong to any of them; we're not joiners.
Normally, we secretly root for the snowbirds to go home so restaurants can return to normal, grocery stores won't be so crowded, and traffic will calm down. Except for the restaurant, their extended stay may impact us longer than normal.
Our grocery stores, still depleted of key items a month after the crazy hoarding began, could possibly keep up with the demand from the summer population, but with part-time residents remaining here, they will remain under pressure for the foreseeable future.
I've seen posts by these folks on Nextdoor.com, lamenting about being forced to maintain social distancing and not having their normal lifestyles maintained. After all, why are we paying HOA fees if we can't have access to all the amenities?
I wish I could elicit some sympathy for them, but those of us who live here year-round have to live with these amenities being shut down for long periods of time for repairs or traffic being impacted due to construction projects purposely scheduled for after snowbird season.
We have to live with the extreme heat, the monsoon winds, the hellacious storms, and until recently, the piles of tumbleweeds that would blow across the desert into the neighborhood. And we're not talking about a few of them, either. The first summer here, I piled up enough tumbleweeds to reach above our roofline.
Anyway, this is my own rant about the snowbirds' forced remainder and how we full-time residents have to accept them just as much as they have to accept remaining here despite their personal plans. Let's hope we get through this summer unscathed.
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