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I was talking to a friend from the Midwest who was considering moving here, but the wife changed her mind because she didn't think she could tolerate all the "brown" without trees and lakes and robust parks for their kids. Said the holidays just feel different here without evergreen trees, lights, skating and hot cocoa… anyway, this got me thinking about people who choose to move out here. What do you like about the fact that we don't have the above, save for maybe the Taos area and such?
I was talking to a friend from the Midwest who was considering moving here, but the wife changed her mind because she didn't think she could tolerate all the "brown" without trees and lakes and robust parks for their kids. Said the holidays just feel different here without evergreen trees, lights, skating and hot cocoa… anyway, this got me thinking about people who choose to move out here. What do you like about the fact that we don't have the above, save for maybe the Taos area and such?
What I say is that the Midwest is bland. And the first Christmas was in Bethlehem, in the desert of the Middle East, so you could say New Mexico's environment is closer to the original Christmas than Illinois (or wherever).
We could turn it around and say what is Christmas without luminaria displays (speaking of lights), posole, bizcochitos, the smell of juniper and piñon smoke? It all depends on what you're used to, and you can get used to and appreciate traditions different from your own.
You can skate at various skating arenas in town, and you can have all the snow you could want right here in the Sandias, with miles and miles of trails for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing. How's that for a "robust park" for the kiddos?
His wife is right. It's too danged brown here. It would help if the buildings weren't all brown. I've been told is has to do with all the stucco finishes and that they don't hold color well, but still....what about white? There's a green shade that ages well on stucco too. Yup, too danged much man-made brown in this town. The natural environment you can't do anything about, but it's not all brown, it has it's own appeal, and it does green up nicely in the summer.
I love the winters here. Cold enough to feel like winter and Christmas, but not so cold that you can't be outside doing things. It's a crispy cold, not a bone chilling cold. Winter is my favorite season out here.
As for not having the traditional Christmas stuff, wifey needs to get out a bit. The luminarias are elegant and homey at the same time. And there's nothing more festive to me than palm trees decked out in Christmas lights. Everywhere has something unique and charming about Christmas. You just have to take off your blinders and look.
Location: In a perfect world winter does not exist
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Green is nice but not too much. Use to live in Western Washington and thats all we had, Evergreens as tall as apartment buildings. Blocked all the views. Everywhere felt claustophic cause of that. I rather see vistas and wide opens spaces here.
When I go back to the Mid West - where I lived for 60 years - to visit friends and relatives everything (forests, fence rows, river banks) looks like an impenetrable jungle. As a kid we would be play in the local woods and be covered with ticks and chiggers...poison ivy...oh what fun. I have the impression that people only rarely go into the forests these days...as evidenced by the return of black bears and mountain lions where I used to live and road kill deer along the highways. I miss the 100 different shades of green in the first few weeks of spring but that is about it...that and lightning bugs.
The green here in the desert is more subtle and dusky-colored. Sage and saltbush have a certain color -- sage green, I guess. Chamisa is as green or greener than anything back east and then turns to bright yellow. Almost everything blooms in the desert in some fashion. We had a huge spontaneous bloom of Scorpion Weed (Wild Heliotrope) a couple years ago that turned everything blue. The distant horizons make up for the many years of closed-in living back east. You can watch a thunderstorm track its way across the desert sixty miles away. The night sky is unbelievable. I can see five mountain ranges and watch the sunset and cloud shadows move across the Sandias. I can be in the tall pines of the Jemez Mountains in less than 40 minutes or head up into Las Huertas Canyon and go all the way to the crest of the Sandias if I need a forest. Then there's the Cottonwoods in the bosque -- ancient trees that turn bright gold each autumn. There is a lot of brown -- mostly from exposed rock and desert sand. That is really the bare bones of the desert geology and you can see how it is all woven together if you take the time.
His wife is right. It's too danged brown here. It would help if the buildings weren't all brown. I've been told is has to do with all the stucco finishes and that they don't hold color well, but still....what about white? There's a green shade that ages well on stucco too. Yup, too danged much man-made brown in this town. The natural environment you can't do anything about, but it's not all brown, it has it's own appeal, and it does green up nicely in the summer.
I love the winters here. Cold enough to feel like winter and Christmas, but not so cold that you can't be outside doing things. It's a crispy cold, not a bone chilling cold. Winter is my favorite season out here.
As for not having the traditional Christmas stuff, wifey needs to get out a bit. The luminarias are elegant and homey at the same time. And there's nothing more festive to me than palm trees decked out in Christmas lights. Everywhere has something unique and charming about Christmas. You just have to take off your blinders and look.
I've seen that (the green) here and there around town (Santa Fe), and it looks great! It's really nice for variety. I wouldn't call the stucco finishes "brown", though; they're different shades of tan, and some are pinkish. IDK about Albuquerque, but in Santa Fe, the pueblo-style architecture look does contribute to tourism, and I like the more or less unified color scheme and style. It looks a lot more aesthetic than a jumble of architecture styles and colors, which can look chaotic in some cities. Similarly, parts of the Bay Area, CA, where the Mediterranean style is the dominant one, look very nice.
Moved here in June from KC. Absolutely love the landscape of the desert. The only thing the thick Midwest vegetation does is harbor chiggers, mosquitos, oak mites and ticks. Looked over the fence in back and stared down at a rattlesnake ...... seriously, how cool is that?
Moved here in June from KC. Absolutely love the landscape of the desert. The only thing the thick Midwest vegetation does is harbor chiggers, mosquitos, oak mites and ticks. Looked over the fence in back and stared down at a rattlesnake ...... seriously, how cool is that?
Oak mites aren't common to KC, however they likely are spreading further north with time due to warming climate.
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