By Haddon Libby

Most of us like lists. The Fortune 400 list ranks the net worth of the richest people in the world.  The Standard & Poor’s 500 or Dow Industrials Index are lists of companies that we use when investing.

Given that we live in a resort community with a high percentage of retirees, did you ever wonder which cities are the ones that people over 60 are moving to?  SmartAsset used data from the US Census Bureau to compile its list of most attractive locations for people entering their Golden Years and found that Mesa, Arizona attracted the most with a net gain of more than 3,600 residents entering their Golden Years.

The second most popular destination was just outside of Las Vegas.  Henderson, Nevada attracted 1,600 new retired residents.  North Las Vegas comes in fourth with 1,100 making this region of the country one of the most popular in the United States.

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San Antonio is third with 1,160 followed by Boise, Idaho in fifth, Wilmington NC, Frisco TX, Miami, Jacksonsville, and Raleigh, NC.

To place anywhere in the top 25, a city would need at least 400 new residents over 60.  No Coachella Valley made the list.

GREAT MOMS

With Mother’s Day coming up, did you ever wonder who is viewed as the best mother in the history of the world?  Besides my mother or yours, Mental Floss put together a list of the best moms.  Topping the list was Marie Curie.  Curie is the first woman to win a Nobel Prize for her work in chemistry.  Born in Warsaw, Curie isolated radium which was used in X-rays and cancer treatment until less toxic treatments were developed.  Curie earned two Nobel Prizes in her life while her daughter earned one.

Born as a slave named Isabella Baumfree in 1797, Baumfree escaped slavery to become an early women’s rights activist at the age of 29 with her daughter.  Once free, she went to court to have her son freed from slavery making her the first black woman to go to a court on such issues.  She went on to become an activist preacher and change her name to Sojourna Truth.

Others on this list include Abigail Adams, the wife of President John Adams and mother to John Quincy Adams.  A more recent addition to this list is Kathy Headee who started Mothers Without Borders in the 1990s to help orphaned children around the world.

AIRPORTS

With temperatures in the desert returning to triple digit numbers, many of us will be jetting off to other places this summer to beat the heat.  Our Palm Springs International Airport is a nice size that has lots of departure locations without the crowds of a major airport like LAX.

The busiest airport in the world is in Atlanta with more than 93 million passengers each year.  Dallas/Fort Worth is second with over 73 million passengers followed by Denver, Chicago’s O’Hare, Dubai, LAX, Istanbul, London’s Heathrow, Delhi’s Gandhi and Paris’ De Gaulle.

HOMES

It is fair to say that the cost to buy or rent a place to live is absurdly high in most of California.  According to Rocket Homes, the most affordable place to live is in the Midwest.  For someone earning $65,000/year to live is Wausau, Wisconsin is considered the most affordable including an average home price is in the low $200,000s.  Lafayette, Indiana comes in second with a $240,000 average price.  Other affordable markets include Columbia, Missouri, Grand Forks ND, Morgantown WV, Bangor, Maine, Pittsburgh, Chambersburg PA, Syracuse and Lansing, Michigan.

DOGS

What is the easiest breed of dog to train? According to professional dog trainer Layton Kelly in a Mental Floss article, Doodles like a Goldendoodle, Labradoodle or Aussiedoodle “make things pretty easy” offers Kelly.  It makes sense then that golden and Labrador retrievers come in second and third.  A Bernese mountain dog are “the modern age golden retriever.”

Haddon Libby is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Winslow Drake Investment Management.  For more information on his services, please visit www.WinslowDrake.com.