Quote Originally Posted by OakLeaf View Post
I've never lived in mountains, but I've visited the Rockies several times (Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico), cycled in Napa-Sonoma once, and we live in the Appalachian foothills and frequently travel south to Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky. To me, while the western mountains are definitely awe-inspiring and I love to visit them, I'm a country girl at heart, and for me it's all about the land. I just could not live somewhere so dry and austere. I wrote a poem about it once (it was a love poem actually, using contrasting lands as metaphor for before and after finding love, but anyway) - the line went "life's blood clawed from parched earth, each blade of grass proof of a battle won."

So for me, for a place to live, it's the eastern mountains hands down, the dripping of water off leaves in the morning, the loamy smell of the earth, the deep cover of fallen leaves, daffodils and mushroom hunting in the springtime, the intense smells of honeysuckle, blackberry and rose blossoms in summer, the lush gardens in the lowlands, fireflies in July lighting up the trees as bright as the Las Vegas skyline.

Sorry Gray, you caught me at a homesick moment.
No need to apologize at all! You just described almost exactly how I feel about living here. I love this area. I love CO as well and want to move there really badly, mainly because of jobs and different attitudes, but this will always be my home. It's funny you mentioned the smell of honeysuckle: the other night at work I was walking down the hallway and said, "I smell honeysuckle". One of the nurses said, "Does honeysuckle even have a smell?" I never heard anyone else talk about the smell of the earth and deep cover of leaves like I do. I love that smell! I'd live either place, but I'd always come home here.
Gray