The Western mountains are rugged and majestic and gorgeous and dumb. They don't know what's coming to them. Sure, you can get lost in the wilderness, but they have no subtlety.

They're striking from a distance, but they sure do have subtlety as soon as you get close. It's in the layers of moss and underbrush in the Ho Rainforest, with more shades of green than a body thought possible, in the gentle trickling of the many tiny waterfalls that startle you when you round the corner, in the rich and impossible to duplicate scent that you just know is Gaia's signature perfume.

There are also trucks called loncheros that park outside factories

I have no idea what lonchero translates to, but at one of the bases I was stationed at we refered to them fondly as "roach coaches."

I didn't know rhythmic gymnastics had group events.

Ho Rainforest

I'll grant you that a rainforest has subtlety. Me, I stare out my windows at honking masses of granite seamed with fault lines, with a few trees and scrub oaks clinging to the crags. Not a lot of subtlety there.

Though the aspen groves are very gorgeous. I just wish they were really green, not that yellow green.

DC tends more toward hot dog and ice cream wagons than coffee.

Though when I was at the U of Penn campus last fall, there seemed to be a row of maybe half a dozen wagons, each serving something different.

I'll grant you that a rainforest has subtlety. Me, I stare out my windows at honking masses of granite seamed with fault lines, with a few trees and scrub oaks clinging to the crags. Not a lot of subtlety there.

Yeah, I think the Washington State mountains are a whole different experience. And I missed the last H on Hoh. Ahem. Didn't mean to make her out to be a tramp. She's far from easy.

Alaska's mountains - specifically the Brooks Range - are what I think of whenever Pratchett describes the Ramtop mountains. The scale is rather beyond comprehension - we think we can figure them out, conquer them, put our mark on them, but we can't. We pass by, and they keep on.

Now I'm all happy on coffee carts: [link]

I just love that for a buck its hot and fresh and the pastries are soft and fresh. Ok, now its usually closer to two bucks for coffee and a buttered roll (nom) or donut.

I never met a landscape I didn't love. I know I'm all special snowflake about them, but really, I love them all.

OMG, everyone can suck it SO HARD today.

Not you people.

Vista? [link]