"I am sooooo out of here! I don’t care if I have to pull the van, I am going!” Debbi Garrett said to me when I asked if we should wait for the snowstorm to pass before leaving for Destin, Fla. in the state’s Panhandle. After spending eight months of the year in Tiny, Ont., there is no kind of storm that would stop her from leaving for warmer weather.

After 18 years of snowbirding in Florida, Debbi has the route, the hours driven in a day and the packing down to a science. On the road in the morning and off of it by dark makes for a five-day journey to Florida. By Debbi’s side are her sister-in-law, Margaret Garrett, who has been travelling to Florida for 50 years, and Max, Debbi’s cat. Born in the U.S, “Max is a Florida boy; he comes back to Florida every winter because he hates the snow,” she says. “And of course, where I go, Max goes.”

Over three million Canadians migrate to the Sunshine State every year. Driving to Florida is long and unforgiving, but after you’ve done it many times, it becomes routine, almost something to look forward to. The budget hotels are for kicking back, watching American TV and taking advantage of free WiFi. The chain restaurants along the highway are for ordering giant bowls of pasta and deep-fried cheese. Stopping at casinos occupies some time at night, and, to break up the day, there’s shopping at Target, the Unclaimed Baggage Center in Scottsboro, Ala. or the Cracker Barrel gift store, where you can find, for example, a pink shirt with flamingos wearing Santa hats on it or fun snacks for the road.

Debbi is the president of the Fort Walton Beach Snowbird Club, which keeps their social calendars busy during their four months down there. “You make good friends with people and when you come back the following year, it’s like family. We’re always happy to see one another because we’re sort of all the same – we’ve left our home, our natural places, and it’s just nice to be able to come back and have them as sort of an extended family and go and play darts and cards,” she says. “You walk the beach, shop...I think what you find down here is that nothing matters. Down here, we’re all retired and just out to have a good time.”

After one province, seven states, two snowstorms, buckets of rain and tornado warnings, on her first sunny day in Florida, Debbi says to me over a glass of bottomless mimosas and 18-cent soup, “the key ingredients for snowbirds are good food, cheap prices, early bird specials, cheap liquor, and half decent weather.”

SARAH PALMER

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