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.

Rassenfrassen storm that's not going any damned where.

Gronk.

I grew up in South Florida and I know from green grass and I know from dead, burnt grass.

::snicker:: Sort of like when I lived in Ohio and people there would complain about humidity.

I am an Ocean Person, subset Atlantic, subset New England. I do Cape Cod (sandy) or Maine (glacial) very well; I am okay with this southern Outer-Banksy thing, but it's not the same. (For one thing - mosquitoes! Too hot!)

I like all ocean, but I do favour the wild North Atlantic over all else. But not to swim in. Swimming in it is just crazy--in August and September it's just warm enough to go in without instant getting hypothermia.

I think I have reached the end of the internet already this morning...

I like oceans because there are beaches there. And I'm a big fan of beaches.

Haven't been around deserts much. But anywhere there's lots of sun can't be all bad.

The first time I went to a desert (with stereotypical sandy soil) I kept having the intense feeling that if I just went over the next hill, the ocean would be in view.

In my defense, I was quite young, and any time I'd been in landscape like that (think wild Jersey Shore parks), the ocean HAD been just over yonder. :-)

And don't tell me SF has seasons. They're all weird and in the wrong order.

Yeah, the SF "seasons" weirded me out for the 1 1/2 years I lived there. Besides my time in SF, I've spent my whole life in the Midwest, and I love the seasons here. Although people in Chicago look at me like I'm crazy when I tell them winters are too mild here... I mean, it very rarely gets below 0 F.

I'm not an Ocean person, I'm a mountain person. Give me cool, dry air, small streams of water, and stunning vistas.

I'd like the Midwest, well the Missouri section of it, better without summer. Fall is my preferred season here. Summer here is often quite brutal with high temperatures and ridiculous amounts of humidity.