It has gotten hot here.
I mean HOT.
With the heat comes humidity. With the humidity comes bugs in all their variety.
And not that I'm complaining, because at least we don't have long winters, but I was a little sad this last week when I walked outside at 9:30 PM expecting some cool mountain air to rush over me and instead I got...heat...and humidity...and a cockroach on my door.
It was a momentary brain lapse. We have lived here two years after all, and have also lived with Caribbean island weather which is much the same in the summer, but it hit me.
I MISS THE MOUNTAINS.
This feeling was multiplied by 1000x when Charlie and I walked across a baseball field one day and while crossing the pitchers mound he exclaimed,
"Wow, we just climbed a high mountain!"
*sniff* Really? My kid has forgotten what a MOUNTAIN is??
I quickly forgave him because he is only 4, but like I said, it just made me miss mountains more.
The other thing is, (and forgive me. I truly don't mean any offense by what I say next) any old mountain will just not do. We have visited several nearby mountain ranges and have had a wonderful time breathing their air and glimpsing their vistas.
The Great Smokies, for example, are BEAUTIFUL.
But they're not the same.
This is where I grew up:
Not the cabin, silly!
But this dwelling is on my Granddad's land and we used to play in that cabin and climb the hills you see behind it.
This is a reservoir, 5 miles from where I grew up. We used to bike there in the summer and cliff dive. There are also several beaches.
Notice the HILLS.
Not good enough for you?
I'll give you another sampling of MOUNTAINS I grew up with. Mountains we have climbed, breathed, explored, slept under, and made memories with.
And the BEST part about the mountains I grew up with is
THEY ARE NOT ALL THE SAME.
Eastern mountains are BEAUTIFUL, especially in the spring and fall, but we found that there's not much variety (again, no offense meant).
The mountains I grew up with are unique, each and every one*. And with every turn there's a new adventure.
I have heard some say that some of my mountains are ugly. That's fine. They're entitled to their opinion.
I think they're grand.
*Due to a computer fritz, we lost some of our coolest photos--therefore, I had to steal some images from the internet. Most of these are ours, but not all.
6 comments:
I know just how you feel. I loved living in DC (the trees! the flowers! the fireflies!) but I always missed the mountains. And we've had soooooo much rain this spring that right now they are green, with snow on top, and absolutely gorgeous.
Sorry if this makes you homesick--but you have pretty awesome beaches, just remember that!
I'm totally with you on this...I very much miss the mountains...of home, but also in general as Houston is flat as can be. Mountains are near the top of my list for criteria of a place to consider when looking for a place to settle...
Now imagine that you moved to central Illinois (no beaches either) and that it's not just for a residency, but a career. I'm an adult man, but I'll admit, sometimes it makes me want to cry.
I missed the mountains when I was in Florida. I had taken them for granted and used them to keep my sense of direction. When I was in the flat sandbar state I had no mountains from which to know what direction I was facing. I enjoyed your pictures of the mountains. I can appreciate the beauty of Duchesne and the Uintah Basin. :)
Okay, I have to tell on Jace...he thinks our "mountains" in the basin are hideous "dirt hills." I will admit that the mountains are pretty amazing in southern colorado where he grew up, but I sure do miss all of the adventures that were had on all of our "dirt hills."
The Fruitland Native Approves! I also love mountains. There is nothing like a Utah Morning with mist on the Mountains. And yes, I mean to offend, some people just don't GET what a mountain is. In much the same way that my mind doesn't understand true rivers because I happen to be from a place where we call any stream of water a river. In contemplating all the many places where the Beardocrat (native Coloradan, partial to HIS mountains) and I could possibly end up, we stipulate one thing: There MUST Be Mountains!
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