In the words of Tom Petty: "What lies ahead I have no way of knowing, but under my feet the grass is growing. It's time to move on, time to get going." My two years in this crazy place are drawing to an end, and just in time. Two years is a good length of time to live in one location; any shorter and you may miss some nuances that make a place unique, but any longer and you begin to overstay your welcome.
So now I will have a new state to explore and new adventures to write about. And of course, lots of new questions to research on Google. I've already looked up info on living at high elevations. My new home will be at more than 7000 feet elevation, by far the highest I've ever lived. My body will, apparently, make more red blood cells to deal with breathing in less oxygen. I will have to watch out for sunburn and dehydration (so no big change from Florida there). Best of all, I will get to use the alternate high-altitude directions for cake and brownie mixes.
This will be my first occasion to live in Mountain Time. I've lived in Eastern, Central, Pacific and Alaskan, so that rounds things out quite nicely (I will probably skip living in Hawaiian time, but you never can tell). I've also managed to live in GMT and the time zones +1 and +3 from there. Some day I will have to move to Riga or Istanbul in order to get the zone +2. Anyway, Mountain Time sounds cool, and it has the Continental Divide which is hard to beat.
I will no longer be hot all of the time, but I'll have to watch out for frostbite instead. I will miss the waterbirds, turtles, dolphins and manatees, but I should soon get to see pronghorn antelope, prairie dogs, moose and other western wildlife. I'll gladly give up the intercoastal waterway, scary grated bridges or people saying, "It's not the heat, it's the humidity".
I guess I'd better take a few more walks on the beach, since the nearest beach from my new home will be over a thousand miles away in the Pacific Northwest. The mountains, however, will be right out my back door.
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2 comments:
Don't you know there is a Maoist rebellion going on in Nepal!!
Be careful, Fizzy!!
Regards,
Dr. Slojak-Pittman
Professor of South Asian Political Economy
University of Bihar
Congratulations on returning to the mountains! Perhaps Florida would've been home forever if only you'd chosen Celebration, Fl. You'd have no choice but to smile 24/7 there, lest the Mickey-eared snipers take you out.
May I request that your next home be in Istanbul? Not only will you check off another time zone, but I'd love an excuse to visit Istanbul (not Constantinople). But that's nobody's business but the Turks.
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