Have you heard from Nilly?

Last time, 3 days ago. I'll try and call her today (actually, just did - because of your message, but no one answered), but I won't be surprised if she's still sleeping, poor thing.

Aw, go Gracie, (are we still spoilerfonting? why?) with the ice cream eating!

I love the openness around large bodies of water (the ocean, the Great Lakes, etc.). That's one of the things I miss when I'm back in the hill and tree constrained Triangle. It's like I can breathe a little better near the shore.

Oh, and see, the closer I get to the coast and the flatter the landscape gets the antsier I get. 'S why I love the west coast, because you have landscape, including trees and hills and rocks and things, right up to the beach.

H and I both love mountains. He likes to sit down on the flat and look up at the impressive mountains. I like to steal back among the trees along a stream bed in a hollow and tuck in, nest down, back to bedrock, safe.

I loved Holland to bits, Amsterdam, Edam, all the cities. But once in open country? Aaahhggghh. Oh look at those black and white cows--four miles thataway. Exposed as a fly on a pool table, no cover at all.

But as you say, different people like different things. I grew up midway between ancient mountains and the ocean, where there are woods and gentle rolling country. I love it, and I love the ocean, but I doubt I could live there. I love the mountains and they feel like home.

I need to remember that the ocean is Right There. It's all impressive and shit plus very calming with the waves and the white noise and the spray in your face.

I'm still always a little surprised when I walk up to the Safeway and realize the ocean's right there below me.

Although I grew up a lake girl, I love the ocean--looking at the water, walking on the beach, hearing the waves, and iconography (especially lighthouses, tall ships, sails). As long as I don't have to go in it. Partly this is because of a near-drowning incident at the age of 10, partly because I saw Jaws way too early. Mostly I just don't like swimming in anything but freshwater.

You go, Gracie!!

Maybe there are three types of people....desert people and ocean people and a bizarro hybrid of the two?

Add (at least) 2 more types - mountain people and river people. I'm happiest in mountains, unhappiest in desert/plains. Too flat, too... bleah.

Though (as Hec) notes, the hills in CA are too burnt, too brown. Geography-wise and density-wise, Seattle's perfect for me. City, green, mountains, ocean, river, lake.... (Too bad the winters would drive me around the bend.)

Kristin and I driving along the Pacific and both of us waxing rhapsodic over the gray-green crankiness of the Atlantic.

I was there for that drive! And the Pacific, IIRC, was acting much like the Atlantic that day - all iron-colored and angry.

Oh, gods, the shitty 90s cover band at the bar across from me just covered Rage Against the Machine (very poorly) and now they're covering Oasis (still poorly, but probably with the same sobriety level as the Gallaghers). I can kill them, right?

Note to self: make it out to Long Beach at least once more before the summer is over.

That's where I'm from!

I like cities and oceans best. Also enjoy mountains and forests. Also like visiting small towns. Like rivers. Not so much into deserts, but don't really mind them. But they pretty much feel like a beach where someone forgot the ocean and everyone is too polite to mention it.

Why was the gymnastics gala only, like, three routines???

Huzzah for ice cream eating! And I, too, agree about strawberry ice cream making a wonderful 'first meal'.

My sister just finished her 9 months semi-combat training program, with honors! (or, you know, the "with honors" term for finishing army courses). Yay!

(Too bad the winters would drive me around the bend.)

Er, didn't you grow up in Alaska and then spend several years living in Minnesota?

I like big water. Doesn't much matter where. Atlantic Ocean, Lake Huron, Hudson River - they'll all do fine.

Nothing against the Pacific, but I like seasons too much to ever live in California. (And don't tell me SF has seasons. They're all weird and in the wrong order.)

I grew up in the suburbs of NJ, with summers at the Jersey Shore, which is not an exciting ocean at ALL. And I found that I love deserts (at least the Sonora, with all of the cactuses and other exotics).

So when I went to Bahia de los Angeles, halfway down the Baja Peninsula on the Sea of Cortez... I was in hogpeccary heaven. Lovely bay with picturesque volcanic desert islands, seals, dolphins, whales, and seriously large cactuses (cardons are bigger than saguaros) less than 50 yards from the water.

It had mountains, too, that you could see from way out on the bay and navigate by.

I wonder if I'll ever get back there, or somewhere like it.

The boarding school I went to was boarding school for environmental studies in the heart of the Negev desert.

So you kinnda learn to dig those mountains.

It still feels like a second home to me. Nothing gives you perspective after a bad day like taking a deep breath and go outside of your room and walk five minutes into this. Or like my best-friend-then putted it back then: "you're boyfriend dumped you? So what? Go the the cliff and look at the mountains. They are here for for years. You'll survive another day".

That's the reason why I want to live in the desert once I'll settle somewhere. I need those mountains for my sanity.