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11 August 2007
AskMeChaPoll: Oceans or Mountains? Which would you rather live near? Why?
Oceans. You can pee in them. and there's chicks in bikinis. You can pee in the mountains, but there's a serious bikini chick shortage in them thar hills.
I got three miles of mountainous landscape between me and the Pacific Ocean, but Highway 101 and Avila Beach Road cut through them rather efficiently. But I feel funny calling them mountains because nothing anywhere near here goes high enough to get snow in the winter. I'm located somewhere between the Best of Both Worlds and the Best of All Possible Worlds. (And, sorry to tell you taz, but we still have 'Mediterranean' climate here) And, on preview, what mudpuppie said.
Around here, any house/apartment/dwelling scores a higher price the nanosecond it can claim and ocean-view (even if you have to hang out the window and tilt your head just right to get said view). I'm not so impressed by that water horizon, but then I went and bred with a sailor-decendent who clearly digs it. Me, I'll have miles and miles of sapphire-green mountains and rivers and the occasional lake surrounding me instead. Much to explore and I get an odd sense of calm when I'm near mountains and I have something more than a flat blue horizon to look at. I'm suddenly curious if this has to do with where I was brought up, we moved a lot but mountains were always around.... Did you have your preference in your childhood?
I love the mountains, but I'd pick the ocean. I kick myself every time I forget my camera as I walk down to the beach in Ponce Inlet. The water is a breathtaking turquoise blue. The sand is fine and white. The surf has been rough for a lot of the summer, but this last month has been calm. It's beautiful.
The ocean is familiar to me; I've lived here all of my life. I think I'd feel land locked if I weren't by the ocean. I'm not that familiar with mountains. I've been to the mountains in North Carolina a few times. I've skied in West Virginia a couple of times. I've driven up White Mountain in New Hampshire. I've seen them out the window in a Las Vegas hotel. That's about it, I've never lived in a mountainous place. They are beautiful. I love the crisp air in the summer evenings.
I lived in Vancouver for 15 years, and moved away one year and 9 months ago, and the thing that I miss the most is the ocean. I love the scenery of the mountains, and I like to hike them, but to me the ocean is just so peaceful. It feels like home.
I lived in North Vancouver one year, which is basically within throwing distance of mountains, and I hated living there. It rained more, and was damper and darker.
In Vancouver you can job along the beach while looking at the Mountains. That is heaven.
As a flatlander, I would have to say the mountains. (We always want something other than our baseline). Although I visited a cousin on Bainbridge Island (a ferry ride out from downtown Seattle) and loved it. I think it was having both the ocean and mountains in view (although that isn't a part of the ocean you swim in a lot). I have another cousin, formerly a flatlander, who loves San Diego for that reason. Says you can be snow skiing in the morning and watching the sunset from the beach that night.
Ocean! I love water, and swimming, and boats. I always wanted to live near a large body of water. And as a matter of fact I do - but oddly, in Toronto Lake Ontario just isn't the presence it should be.
I get sort of panicky and claustrophobic when I'm too far from the sea, and I've never lived in a landlocked state or place since I was three years old. I could watch it forever: the changing colors, the sparkle and foam, the glass surface or the choppy white caps, the fish (or dolphins or whales) playing and jumping, the tides, the waves.
Heaven is watching a storm roll in over the ocean. Put me in a chair facing the sea, and I could be happy forever. (That said, oddly - I loathe sunbathing. I hate sitting on the beach for hours broiling in the sun. But a house with a view, or on a ship, I'm in hog heaven.)
I really, really miss the sea view from my old place in Thessaloniki. (That was a "hang out the windowbalcony and tilt your head just right to get said view", dabs - but it was just a few blocks from me, and every time I walked outside, bam! I saw the sea. *sigh*)
Ocean. It's in my blood. My father once turned down a great job offer because he'd have to move farther inland and the thought of being landlocked made him claustrophobic in a way. We are a seafaring people, we rossis.
Ocean BUT if this is a typical North American temperate clime, not too close.
I remember a trip I took out to the Rockaways in the middle of winter and let me tell you, the cold and the wind were just fucking BRUTAL.
But then, I remember the time I went to Red Hook to do some drinking and the smell of the salty sea wafting onto the side streets was enough to make me cry.
Ocean. For the first 26 years of my life I lived a bike-ride away from the Pacific. I missed the ocean so so much when I moved to the USA. Even now, I'm near salt water, but it doesn't seem right. I want to be back near sandy beaches where I could walk in the evening and see nobody except for maybe a person walking their dogs, and a kid playing in the sand dunes.
Born in Rhode Island - "the Ocean State", moved to coastal California where I lived through college, have only left to live on islands or near the coast. I lived 100 miles from the sea in Indonesia (which is actually kind of a challenge in an archipelago) and made it to the beach just twice in a year...hellish. Now I'm moving to Riga, Latvia, which is just a few flat, bikeable/trainable miles from the Gulf of Riga and Jurmala, which was like the Soviet Riviera in its heyday. Half the reason I'm moving there is to get some beach action, even if the weather isn't always so great: ≡ Click to see image ≡ ≡ Click to see image ≡
Living in the British Isles, we tend to say 'the sea' rather than 'the ocean' because, well, we're surrounded by sea - the North Sea, the English Channel, the Irish Sea ...
I love being in mountainous country, unless I have to drive, but for me the sea has a special pull, I love it.
I love driving in the mountains. A year or so ago, I had a rental car - a brand new Holden Statesman which, while an auto, had a "sport mode" where you can shift manually using paddles behind the steering wheel and I re-discovered my love of driving fast on twisty roads. The drive down the range from Mareeba to Cairns was only slightly spoiled by the discovery that, if I pushed the car hard enough into a corner, the front outside tyre would rub on the bodywork, having the same effect as slamming the brakes on mid-corner, which wasn't fun. I raced someone down that range with such enthusiasm and focus that, when reliving the drive with a couple of work colleagues a could of months ago (one of whom suffers from car-sickness, so the trip was much slower), I couldn't remember any of the scenery at all.
I love visiting the mountains, but the ocean has my heart.
Mountains. Proximity to ocean = hurricanes and other assorted nasty storms. And ocean is too tied up with Florida in my head, and I don't like Florida.
Ocean. I love mountains, or more especially woods, so I need that too. It's just that I feel such a peace when I visit the ocean (more so when it's not crowded with sun worshipers). Right now the ocean is a half hour away, and I'm waiting for the summer crowd to leave before strolling on it again. I once had a boyfriend whose family owned a big house on a strip of land that fronted on the ocean, with a seawater river behind. Both the sunsets and sunrises from their property were spectacular. When we broke up, I think I missed the house the most.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
