that was beautiful, M! now i can't picture you living anywhere else.
definitely not in NC. i love being closed in by tall trees and lots of
green--just the opposite of what you love. we should all be lucky
enough to live someplace we love.

diane

I sure can see you going nuts in a city.  And, I know exactly what you mean.  
For me, it's the ocean.  I love the sound of the waves, the smell of the sea,
the shorebirds feeding their young and fighting for juxtaposition as the waves
come in.  I love the white sand with the purple garnet patches that feel like
talc between your toes.  I love the beach peas, beach grass, beach heather, the
hollies and pines.  I love the singing song birds, and the chattering
woodpeckers.  

I've never spent any time in a desert, be it high or low, but I have visited
some desert environments for short times.  Albuquerque has an almost foreign
feel to my eastern blood.  It's rocky, dry and subltly beautiful.  I spent a
few hours in Petroglyphs National Monument, climbed to the top of the steep
trail, and looked around at a gorgeous view.  The top was a sacred place for
the Native Americans, and I could see why.  I took images, but found it
impossible to capture that beauty.  It was boldy graphic and stunning there,
but also very subtle and small.  Some don't know if the rocks are truly sacred
works, or instead merely ancient grafitti.  Either way, they depict a culture
long gone, and thet saddened me somewhat.  Where did they go?  Why?  Did
Europeans drive them off?

Same for the Grand Canyon and its surroundings.  There was a great culture
there, and now it's totally gone, having left mere traces and cryptic messages
of its presence.  The west is an acient place.  The east is more green, more
ocean, more ephemeral.  The ocean has only stories, some wrecked ships that
poke out of the sand at times, but nothing of a native culture.  I think the
native Americans knew to keep their main dwellings off a barrier island.  

Barrier islands come and go.  It's only since the arrogant white settlers with
lots of money and the desire to kill every whale that passed by decided to
settle and make this place "permanent".  Now, we fight a political battle
trying to maintain a naturally shifting shoreline while houses and their
inhabitants fight to stabilize, and in my opinion, ruin what was once so
beautiful about his place.  Sure, the communities are fun.  But, it's a very
selfish, very self serving, very arrogant, and very uneducated fun.  But, with
big money burning holes in your pockets, you can afford to be arrogant and
selfish.  I cannot.  I'm just a government hump, a working stiff, trying to
maintain some kind of balance between these competing interestes, Man and
Nature.  I've been doing it my entire career, the last 18 years iwth the park
service, and it's wearing me down to a nub.

Geez, Melinda, you really got me started.  Just know that if you're ever out
this way, and if you ever need a place to stay, my door is always open to you.  
Always.  As for Johnie, now that you mention Tuscon, I remember that he'd said
that.  For some reason, I was thinking Taos.  I sure wish he'd pop into ASA for
a visit.  Wouldn't that be something?

ah, you have an appreciation for the desert I've never learned.  I'm a
mountain & forest girl myself.  Fortunately, I married a mountain & forest
guy.  I understand the peace you find in the dessert as that is what we find
in the out in the mountains, especially mildly isolated camping in our tent.  
(I still like flush toilets & access to showers, but not RVs all over the
place!)  Even photos bring some of that peace home to me - that's probably
why I've belonged to the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy for over
20 years, since I lived in Asheville.  We're thinking now that retirement
will probably be in the Boone, NC area..........

http://www.carolemay.com/images/L41_maleorca_small.jpg

Me :)
who LOVES them!