Sunday, June 5, 2016

SUMMER...I get it, three months of perfection.

        Warmth...steady, reliable ...a little sweaty, days with less clothes and a lot of cold water; to drink, to dip in, to open your eyes in...ohhh, heaven. I think it's the thing about living in a region of four seasons. Each new season titillates different senses. People are suckers for warm climates...after a handful of season-less years, you begin to forget how sweet it is to enter a new season. You won't know what I am talking about if you haven't spent time, extended periods of time, in both zones.
         I grew up in Michigan and then invested fifteen years in the largely season-less lowlands of California. Now I've accomplished 30 years in the northern mountains of California...real mountains, the mountains that give you a very definite taste of each season. Let me just say...Summer is much appreciated. I live in a quiet corner of this 1,000 mile long state...I might not be so in love with Summer if I had to live in one of the urban pockets that infect much of California. The noise, the lack of respect for each other's territory (and mind space) would probably drive me nuts...ie Lake Tahoe. Chester/ Lake Almanor...ain't no Tahoe.
        So far, snow-birding has not been for us...we stay in snow country to fight the good fight...to shovel, to keep an eye on the ice dams and to make sure the windstorms don't cause havoc with our cherished structures. Our pipes stay thawed and our driveway remains driveable. We cheat just a little...by dropping to lower elevations for bicycling, camping, shopping and visiting grandmother.
         It is somewhat odd to add 50 degrees to your daily high temperature by migrating to another corner of your same state for a week or so. No other state in the union features this possibility. Snowbirding for a week or so is not the same as snowbirding to avoid an entire season. Well, maybe Arizona, if you live in Flagstaff.

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