Your city/hometown

[Popoki_Nui]

Hometown: Victoria BC
http://www.tourismvictoria.com/

Originally a Hudson's Bay Company trading outpost and Gold Rush staging point in the 1800's, Victoria was built largely by Chinese and Kanaka labourers and ruled by the British. Today Greater Victoria is the capital of British Columbia and a city of 350,000 laid-back, slightly off-centre folks, most of whom have ended up here on the island to escape from the harsh climate in the rest of Canada, as well as ex-pats and wanderers from all over the world.
Some of our most notable events are the Swiftsure and Victoria-to-Maui yacht races, Tall Ship Festival, FolkFest...a celebration of multiculturalism, and the Victoria Cycling Festival (yay! )
Hope you can visit sometime!

[bikerchick68]

Popoki... also the Gardens! I love Buschart Gardens (sp?)... and Stanley Gardens in Vancouver... as well as Capilano Suspension Bridge... Victoria and Vancouver are both just gorgeous!

[Popoki_Nui]

Popoki... also the Gardens! I love Buschart Gardens (sp?)... and Stanley Gardens in Vancouver... as well as Capilano Suspension Bridge... Victoria and Vancouver are both just gorgeous!

...bikerchick...did you actually cross the Capilano Susupension Bridge?? Wow...you're made of stronger stuff than me. I made it about ten feet before freaking out...I just can't deal with the height!
D'oh...I forgot about the Buchart Gardens! Pretty spectacular, for sure. Did you visit in summer with the fireworks? This past winter they put in a refrigerated outdoor skating rink...now we can ice skate among the palms and cedars. Bizarre but neat

[Waverly]

I live in North Georgia. I have lived in several areas in GA but mainly grew up in Athens. Athens is the home of the University of Georgia and is a neat place to live....if you like college students. North Ga is home of the famous Brasstown Bald climb of the Tour de Georgia. I have never even attempted to climb it. I actually tried to walk up it and pooped out so I watched the race from where I stopped Ga is also famous for peaches and peanuts. I enjoy riding around here because there is still a lot of "country" in this area and really all over Ga. I am very accustomed to heat and really whiny if I am cold. And yes I have the awful wicked southern accent!

Jessica

[DrBee]

I live in North Georgia. I have lived in several areas in GA but mainly grew up in Athens.
Jessica

Jessica - 2 cool things about Athens are REM and the B-52's

[DrBee]

I grew up in northern Maryland (Baltimore County) - moved around a lot within the county. Maryland is known for it's steamed blue crabs and the world's best crabcakes. Yummmm - how I miss them.

For the past 5 years I've lived in Cleveland, MS. The MS Delta region is known for catfish (which I work on) and the blues (which I know very little about, but like the music). We have super hot summers which last forever, have high humidity and gigantic mosquitos (that take multiple hits to kill - seriously) and wet and not so cold winters.

[NorCalGal]

This is a great thread! I love hearing about everyone's hometown, either current or where they grew up, or both.

I grew up on the beaches of Ventura, California (south of Santa Barbara...and hello there fatbottomed girl in Simi Valley!) but now live in Orland, California. Hardly anyone knows of us, but when we tell them we're about 20 miles west of Chico, then the light bulb goes on. Good bike riding there, one of the largest municipal parks in the nation, Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, and Cal State Chico, which is trying to overcome a party-school rep.

Anyway, when we moved here from Ventura we pretty much went into culture shock. There are REAL COWBOYS here wearing tight Wranglers and REAL SPURS and there are more cows than people. We're at about 6,500 residents, and our county has about 26,000 total.

Orland was once in the Guiness Book of World Records for having the most churches and bars per capita than any other city in the U.S.

We grow olives and rice and almonds. Cal Worthington lives here (but not his dog Spot). We're about halfway between Sacramento and the Oregon border, and Tahoe and Mt. Shasta are an easy morning's drive for skiing.

Besides the wonderful small-town environment, what I love about my little city is that on every holiday where an American flag is in order, such as Veterans Day, Memorial Day, etc., the local Boy Scouts put up hundreds of large American flags along the two miles of the city's main street. They drilled holes in the sidewalk near the curb for each flag's pole, and the flags are spaced about 20 feet from each other. It's absolutely spectacular, and when the flags went up after 9/11, it was nearly impossible to drive down the main drag without crying.

[bikerchick68]

...bikerchick...did you actually cross the Capilano Susupension Bridge?? Wow...you're made of stronger stuff than me. I made it about ten feet before freaking out...I just can't deal with the height!
D'oh...I forgot about the Buchart Gardens! Pretty spectacular, for sure. Did you visit in summer with the fireworks? This past winter they put in a refrigerated outdoor skating rink...now we can ice skate among the palms and cedars. Bizarre but neat

Yep! I thought it was breathtakingly gorgeous... and when you get to the other side, there are gorgeous walking trails thru the forest... really a beautiful area. Of course, I have also bungee jumped once... I'm going to Australia in Sept and will be doing the Sydney Bridge Climb... you have to wear a special suit where they clip ya in so if ya fall they can drag ya back up... falling is very unlikely... but I find it amusing. My best friend, not so much. She is not going, but will sit and wait while she sips an Appletini!

I was there in summer but didn't see the fireworks... have friends in Seattle so plan to come up next year again... but most likely in winter cause they want me to snowboard with them!

for those that haven't heard of the Capilano Suspension Bridge... it's 1 mile up, 1/4 mile across a river, fully suspended bridge... it shakes when ya walk on it! click the link and then watch it play... pretty neat!

http://www.capbridge.com/

[DirtDiva]

for those that haven't heard of the Capilano Suspension Bridge... it's 1 mile up, 1/4 mile across a river, fully suspended bridge... it shakes when ya walk on it! click the link and then watch it play... pretty neat!

http://www.capbridge.com/

A mile-high swingbridge? Duuuuuuude!

[jobob]

Hometown: Victoria BC
Today Greater Victoria is the capital of British Columbia and a city of 350,000 laid-back, slightly off-centre folks, most of whom have ended up here on the island to escape from the harsh climate in the rest of Canada, as well as ex-pats and wanderers from all over the world.

PN, you lucky girl, I adore Victoria ! Hubby and I spent a few days there early June last year, on our cycling tour. It's a fabulous area for cycling. One day we rode around the perimeter of the Saanich Peninsula, with great roads and gorgeous scenery (and some of those homes - wow). Another day we rode out to Butchart Gardens - that hill you have to climb on the way out sure is fun, oy! - and the Butterfly Museum. It's such a cycling-friendly environment, with lots of urban bike trails. We stayed close to downtown and we had no trouble cycling through the city. I need to go back there !

[LittleBlackDuck]

Here'e the second Aussie contribution to this thread ....

For the past 10 years I've been living in the coastal tourist town of Busselton in the state of Western Australia. It's about a 2 1/2 hour drive south of where CrazyCanuck lives (I grew up in Tuart Hill Canuck )

Busso, as us locals call it, is famous for having the longest timber jetty in the southern hemisphere. As you can see, it also has a glorious white sandy beach and calm, crystal clear ocean. The four boatsheds that you can see in the photo house the interpretive centre and for those that don't want to walk, or can't walk, the small dinky train takes you to the end of of the jetty.



The jetty is almost 2 km long (about 1.2 miles) and at the end of it is an underwater observatory.



The observatory is a chamber that takes you 8 metres below the surface of the water and has about 3 levels and 11 viewing windows allowing you to see the unbelievably beautiful coloured corals that habitate the pylons of the jetty.



I haven't been inside the observatory but have scuba dived under the jetty and the marine life just took my breath away .

Oh.... and Busselton is host of IronmanWA (Ironman Western Australia) .

[Popoki_Nui]

[COLOR="DarkSlateBlue"]Here'e the second Aussie contribution to this thread ....

For the past 10 years I've been living in the coastal tourist town of Busselton in the state of Western Australia. It's about a 2 1/2 hour drive south of where CrazyCanuck lives (I grew up in Tuart Hill Canuck )

Busso, as us locals call it, is famous for having the longest timber jetty in the southern hemisphere. As you can see, it also has a glorious white sandy beach and calm, crystal clear ocean. COLOR]

So beautiful!!! Excuse me while I drool on my keyboard. Wow...that ocean is exquisite. Where's my suitcase.....

[mmelindas]

Wow, what amazing shots, especially the underwater one, you too-cool gal from Australia! Thanks so much for the photos...say how did you get them to display in your post? You are new here but so am I, and I don't know how to do it. Send us more, photos of your beautiful country and Welcome to TE!!

I love this thread, getting some great ideas of places to visit. I think my nosebleed from the Capilano bridge stopped, now I have "rocky mountain quick step disease from even contemplating what being on that swaying, rocking nightmare of a mile high bridge must be like.......eeeeeeeeeekkkkkkk!! I think I'm gonna hurl........

[DirtDiva]

Just above where you type in your message there's a little square with a picture that looks like it's supposed to be a couple of mountains and the moon. Click on that and type in/paste in the web address of the photo you want to add. (Or if you understand how to work HTML tags, the code is IMG.)

[Lise]

Chicago's my home town. I was born in Park Ridge, a NW suburb, moved around as a kid to Syracuse NY and Minneapolis, but back to Lake Bluff, a northern suburb by age 13, and then into "the city" at 18 for college, and never left. I love my home, and I think it would be a beautiful city to visit. We don't have the natural beauty that so many of you live in, and I envy that. But...there's no place like home, right?

CrazyCanuck asked if it's windy all around Chicago...it's the prairie--only thing that stops the wind is the lake, and when it blows off the lake--WHOA! What gets me is that sometimes it seems to blow from all directions at once. In those times, my feeling is: Surrender Dorothy. You're not going to overcome it, so hunker down and let it blow!
About Oak Park--I agree with Betagirl. It's a lovely town. My sister lives there. My grandma was born and raised there. Her dad was a building contractor that worked with Frank Lloyd Wright, and they grew up in a house designed by Wright, "The Balch House". The Hemmingway family lived close by, and Ernest's younger sister, Carol, was close friends with my grandma. My aunt is named for her, and my middle name is Carol, for my aunt. Hence...(six degrees of separation)...my connection to Ernest Hemmingway!