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Sacramento gets a bad rap from SoCal and the Bay Area, it always has. We call them Coastal Snobs,
Sacramento is consistently rated one of the top fittest cities in the nation.
Sacramento gets 3 times the rain as many parts of SoCal. Sacramento is not barren, it is full of trees, more tress than any spot anywhere in SoCal. The Valley Oak is a beautiful 100foot tall tree with 100 foot canopy and it is Native to the Sacramento Valley.
Sacramento has a Mediterranean Climate, as does Spain, the South of France, Israel, well, the entire Mediterranean.
Sacramento is an excellent biking town, we have the American River Bike trail that is on both sides of the river linking Sac with Folsom Lake, which has plenty of big hills, its a 20 mile gradual uphill climb to about 500 feet. Sacramento has a lot more fresh water recreation than SoCal or Denver.
From Sacramento, I can be at a Pacific Ocean Beach, surfing, in under 2 hours, better yet, I can raft down Sacramento's American River in the heart of Sacramento, or in 1 hour I can be in a Mountain Forest at 6000 feet at one of hundreds of Alpine Lakes in the Sierra Nevada Mts, or the biggest, Lake Tahoe in less than 2. In Winter, Tahoe as world-class ski resorts, the closest ski resort to my Sacramento home 1hr, 20mins.
Which suburb in Sacramento can you get to Tahoe in 80 minutes? From Downtown Sac to Tahoe it takes 2 hours, without traffic.
And, 2 hrs is NOT close. 30 minutes or under is close. Even if the best ski resort in the world were only 2 hrs from my home I would not go there more than once or twice a year. Hardly a reason for me to live there, as fun as skiing is.
I like flatness when its like grassy plains where you can see for miles and miles. Or a place with water. Otherwise... ehhh.. hills are nicer. But I grew up in Florida I had enough flatness.
I tend to feel closed in when there are no visible hills or valleys. I’ve always lived by a river so there is some sort of valley or change in terrain. I suppose the difference for me would be the level of urban development. Riding a bike out on a flat country road would be enjoyable to me but not in a heavy developed urban area. I need to see undeveloped land in the distance...flat or not. I have a large mountain to my east across a river and a relatively flat empty desert stretching 60-80 miles to the west. I can watch a storm crossing the desert for a couple hours which is awesome. The mountain has its own charms as well.
What the Gulf Coast lacks in topographical variation, it more than compensates for in its greenery and pristine beaches with 85 degrees waters.
Then there's places in California's Central Valley that are flat... AND brown, dead, and dry (aside from the Sacramento/San Joaquin Rivers and some cities like Sacramento, where they plant lots of trees, but I'm talking about the countryside). That's the worst. Ok, fine, maybe you can see a silhouette of mountains on the horizon.
I can think of a lot of flat areas in the US that I find mesmerizing.
Cape Cod area
Chesapeake Bay area
Outer Banks of NC
SC and GA Low Country and Barrier Islands
Okefenokee Swamp
FL's Biscayne Bay, Keys, Southwest Coast, Emerald Coast
LA Bayou Country
Many of the flat areas in the country compensate with beautiful water features.
North Dakota looks pretty when the sunflowers are abloom and it gets nice and green. Winter is desolate, but tolerable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Enean
Flat can be beautiful....tall grasses waving in the wind, as far as the eye can see, is one of my favorite views in the world. I love both, and there are advantages to both, whether people will admit it, or not.
That is pretty, I agree. And so are thunderstorms seen from miles away.
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