Man. "Up North" for me is like... West. I live near the Rocky Mountains in Canada. I AM up north - we prefer to go "down south" for the occasional winter break. Also, unrelated, but how does anyone in the US survive their summers?! It gets to just over 30 Celsius without much humidity here and everyone turns into puddles on the floor.
I can understand you need to go south in the winter as there are many of us who like to escape the cold and snow here in Michigan too. Your Rockies sure are beautiful - we've been to both Banff and Jasper. We've been lucky so far here in Michigan as the temps have remained reasonable during the summer months - today may have been the first 90 F day of the year. Fortunately, cooling off starting tomorrow and in the 70s this week.