I suppose that you could list up a countable infinity of differences between the land here in Boulder, and the land back in Cincinnati. It would all depend on what’s important to you, which is what you tend to notice.
What I’m noticing today is the horizon. In Cincinnati, we’re in the eastern part of the Midwest. We have plenty of hills, and when they’re nicely wooded or fielded, they’re quite lovely. Not anything much to write home about, nothing of a dramatic nature, really. They’re also not very high. You get up to maybe 500 feet.
What this does to the horizon is that you don’t particularly notice it. A few rolling hills — it all looks the same. The horizon is just where the land ends and the sky begins. Is it far away? Sure. Probably. Who cares?
Here in Boulder, the horizon is vastly different. I get both the horizon of the plains, and the horizon of the mountains. Boulder isn’t a mountain town, but it’s about as close as you can get to the mountains without being a mountain town. We are smack up against the base of the Front Range of the Rockies. Trust me, they are considerably higher than 500 feet. The front slabs, called “the Flatirons” here, are made of the Madison limestone formation, pushed way out of the horizontal by eons of continental drift, and geologic uplift.
Between the mountains and the plains, the eye can’t stop moving, and the horizon zooms out hundreds of miles.
But home is still home, and I suppose I’ll end up back there, right on schedule.
Oh I wish I could save myself from this habit of going home…
white pebble 