No Chaser

The, um, "great" outdoors

The one thing I miss most about living anywhere else I've lived but here is Nature.  I love the beach, mountains, forests, rivers, and I spend as much time in those places as possible.  Growing up in California, I did tons of camping and hiking all over the place as a Girl Scout, skipped school to go to Santa Cruz as a teenager, and marvelled throughout my life at the redwoods.  In Boston, I walked by the Charles regularly, swam in Walden Pond, lived by the ocean for a year.  Portland had Forest Park, the Willamette, and amazing hikes, waterfalls, and beach within an hour's drive.  In Seattle, I lived very close to the beach and would walk there with the dogs at least once a week, usually more.  Any direction I looked, I saw huge peaks and beautiful mountain ranges, and in a few hours, I could drive to an enormous forest.  Even the park near my house contained a small forest on a cliff above the beach. 

Here, there is mainly corn.  Oh, sure, there are soybeans as well and a few patches of prairie grass and wildflowers, which are lovely.  And, there are pretty little forests nearby with sweet little streams that I enjoy walking through, but they lack the grandeur and wildness of the natural spaces I'm accustomed to.  I guess a corn field could be grand, and I have seen farmland in Idaho that I've responded to in that way.  I think the mass of Syngenta signs around these cornfields diminishes that quality.  We are a fairly long distance from the truly impressive big lakes and rivers of this region although I appreciate them when I have the chance to see them.

In Seattle, we spent a lot of time in and on the lakes, swimming, kayaking, and canoeing.  We decided to keep the canoe when we moved, but selling our kayaks drove home how different our lives would be.  We've investigated places to paddle here, and while there are some excellent opportunities several hours away in various directions, there's very little nearby.  We tried one spot this weekend, and it did the trick, but when we had finished paddling around the entire lake, which took about two hours at a slack pace with both a walk and lunch break in there as well, we both agreed that it was a good thing we hadn't tried it out last year as it would have just depressed us. 

It's just the general smallness of everything here that feels stifling and vaguely disappointing, and I admit it's a matter of both taste and perspective.  I'm getting used to life here, and there are many things I like, which I've enumerated in the past.  I'm especially pleased for the new and fun training it offers me.  But I miss the high I get just looking at a mountain and the sense of expansiveness and movement a very large body of water provides.

posted by: NoChaser at August 22, 2006 08:05 | link | comments (4) |

Comments:

#1  22 August 2006 - 08:38

 

NO DOUBT!!! MOUNTAINS!!! OCEAN!!! GET US OUT OF HERE!!! (signed: clonk)

Mo'nonymous

#2  22 August 2006 - 08:52

 

It could be a case of "If you can't bring the corn to the mountain, then bring the mountain to the corn."

Why can Cornlandia at least have the decency to build a large recreational lake? I'd have a stern talk with the Mayor.

-Helmut de Phyffe

Mo'nonymous

#3  28 August 2006 - 06:19

 

Amen. Amen. Amen. I just left a post about the climate here, but, really, it's the landscape. This last week, I kept going back to the view out our back door in Oregon. Even with the mountains, there was just so much more SKY to see. I expected a bigger horizon here, what with it so flat and all, but it seems just the opposite. I feel like I never see the horizon or a good patch of stars or even a big ol' sunrise/set. It's so flat you never get high enough to look out like that.

Mo'nonymous

#4  29 August 2006 - 19:42

 

There is a *rumor* that the Kankakee State Park has an 8-mile hike with a real, live waterfall.

-planbreaker

Mo'nonymous

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