The local chamber of commerce likes to brag up the highlands of southern New Mexico as having "four gentle seasons." Who are they kidding? Our climate is a continental one, at 6000 feet above sea level; it has two semi-gentle and real seasons interleaved with two mathematical concepts known as spring and fall. If you're really serious about a four season climate, full-time RVing is the best thing to do. But I'm a townie now.
Neighborhood gossip revealed that some of my neighbors were already using heat. In mid-October! How could they do such a thing after trying to sleep in the summer with noise and heat? The cooler the air the better you sleep, but only to a point. I merrily switched sleeping bags, put pants and socks on, and finally covered my head, but when I actually had to turn on the heat I felt profoundly defeated. Why take it so seriously?
It wasn't just the seasons that transitioned quickly; so too was the switch from road cycling to mountain biking. It's a fairly big transition: different routes, riding posture, and pedaling stroke. Those factors were easy this year, but I struggled with the cold, despite mountain biking being 10-15 F warmer than road cycling. The winter routes, the cool wind, and fall colors made it feel like a "travel" adventure. This was quite a relief, since the desirability and plausibility of being a stationary ex-full-time traveler is based on the idea of substituting time travel (or season-travel) for odometer travel.
When I was a full time RVer on the road I worked at avoiding the stereotypes. Thus I found challenges to keep it interesting. Now I must do the same thing as a permanent, a townie, particularly with respect to standard climate notions: being able to wear shorts on the golf course in January, or whatever the retiree saw on the front cover of a glossy. There's something distasteful and enfeebling about always being comfortable.
This might be one concrete, personal example of the "Challenge and Response" that Toynbee talked about in his Study of History: certain civilizations have responded positively to poor soil, bad climate, or hostile neighbors, while others were smacked by excessive challenges and were retarded or even succumbed to them.
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