Minivan. You can get a minivan that has more room than a crossover, lower load height so that you hurt even less getting in, and you have more headroom to get car seats in and out. They're far superior in every way. But everybody quit buying them because of some "uncool" factor. It's stupid.
The ground clearance on most crossovers is a joke. I have to point out how my Lotus Elise has 6 inches of ground clearance, and most CUVs have maybe an inch more than that. They have low-hanging diffs that hang up, and no recovery points for when you do get stuck. They're still the same car, barely jacked up. They look higher, but they aren't that much higher. Your one inch of extra clearance isn't saving you. The black plastic fenders don't make it rugged or capable. Most are just FWD, and the ones that are AWD just overheat and burn out the transfer case.
I live in a rural area, in the mountains, with lots of steep hills. My long ass driveway doesn't get plowed, my street is extremely low priority for plowing, never had problems getting around with 2wd cars. You sound like my neighbors who keep saying that I need a big 4wd truck to live out here. People just keep making these excuses to buy bigger cars that sit higher, without actually evaluating if these vehicles actually have the things they're marketed to be able to do.
I rented a Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid on my last business trip. No snow (SW) but a mix of suburban and rural roads and I was surprised at how much more fun it was to drive than the RAV4 I had on my last business trip (not to mention the giagantor 4Runner I rented over the winter break - to stop that thing you pass a motion, second it, send it to the executive branch and then hope it gets signed by the time you get to the stop sign at the bottom of the hill, but I digress). Modern minivans have apparently reached some odd pinnacle of car evolution right as they are going extinct. I imagine there's an alternate timeline where we have jetpacks and a general cure for cancer but only farm hands drive pickups...
(And you definitely don't step down into anything to get into it-quite the opposite. The driver's chair even auto pulls back to let you in which is definitely geezer friendly : )
The ground clearance on most crossovers is a joke. I have to point out how my Lotus Elise has 6 inches of ground clearance, and most CUVs have maybe an inch more than that. They have low-hanging diffs that hang up, and no recovery points for when you do get stuck. They're still the same car, barely jacked up. They look higher, but they aren't that much higher. Your one inch of extra clearance isn't saving you. The black plastic fenders don't make it rugged or capable. Most are just FWD, and the ones that are AWD just overheat and burn out the transfer case.
I live in a rural area, in the mountains, with lots of steep hills. My long ass driveway doesn't get plowed, my street is extremely low priority for plowing, never had problems getting around with 2wd cars. You sound like my neighbors who keep saying that I need a big 4wd truck to live out here. People just keep making these excuses to buy bigger cars that sit higher, without actually evaluating if these vehicles actually have the things they're marketed to be able to do.