Quote:
I lived in Southern New Mexico and West Texas for the past ten years and recently returned to Wisconsin.
It's not necessarily about the cold, but the four seasons. There's something to be said about the four seasons; the brisk fall mornings with the leaves changing colors, the blanket of white that hides the stark winter landscape, the spring melt washing away the winter's accumulation, the soggy spring with wildflowers popping up, the warm, humid summers forcing an explosion of growth in the fields and the forests.
I just didn't see the same in the southwest. It seemed to me to be two seasons, green and brown. Either the mesquite, cactus, and grass was green or it was dry and brown. I don't know how else to describe it. I've heard a lot of northerners say that they don't like the heat of the southwest. When it's cold it's pretty easy to warm up. You put on more clothes, warm up in the car, go in the house, but when your hot you're just hot.
It does get cold in the southwest, not as cold as here, but I noticed when it would get cold nobody knew how to dress for it. In West Texas it would get 35 degrees with a 30 knot wind and people would be wearing their normal fare, jeans and a t-shirt (or even shorts and sandals), and add a light windbreaker and then complain about how cold it was.
I've been marveling at the fall weather here. I love stepping out in the morning to the 40 to 50 deg weather, the leaves changing color, the corn turning a golden yellow. Obviously the weather would get to this in West Texas, yet somehow it just wasn't the same.