Where are the mountains?!?

Just another winter day in Colorado!

My transition to the River City began in the Fall of 2009 in very unexpected ways. It still is one of the 
most interesting stories in my life! I had been on a  touristy trip to Washington DC a few years earlier and when I first knew I was  visiting Richmond, I thought - why not? After all, the place was close to DC and in my mind, I had somehow mapped Richmond as east coast !! I would realize later that it was more south than east; atleast in the pace of life , culture and history.  I had always had a little thing for living in the east coast after my trip to DC.. Call it the love for politics or love of history or just the great museums or just the pace of life I had witnessed as a tourist in DC; so when I was planning my trip to Richmond for the first time, all I could think of was - east coast!  A little reminder would serve everyone some good here.. I had spent a little more than 8 years upto that point in 2009 in a small town in beautiful Colorado. I had taken for granted snow clad mountains in winter, bright sunny days all through the year, beautiful fall colors , great spring weather and awesome hiking trips  in fall and summer. I will not take this opportunity to brag about the dry weather all year long or the fun part of a snow storm for adults - clearing up the snow from your car and driveways :-) or the popular saying in Colorado - if you dont like the weather, just look through the other window. Weather changed rapidly in Colorado!  To me, being able to see bright blue skies, mountains and vast expanses of land  every day was just something natural.. So, in the Fall of 2009 landing in Richmond, VA after almost a day long trip, it turned out to be a cold rainy Fall day in Richmond and it was dusk by the time I settled down for the day. I was truly terrified. I kept asking myself what in the world was I thinking when I agreed to move to this place, a place where there were no mountains for directions, a place where I could only see dense trees from the highways and a place that was humid and cloudy all the 3 days I spent there that weekend.. People who know me and know me well know that I am a little (read it 'very') challenged when it comes to directions and I had just about come to terms with the directions in Colorado with the help of the mountains and my GPS (my GPS losing its mind in the mountains at times and sending me in a loop is a totally different story). So, what was I going to do in a city where there were no mountains to look at ?!? I had grown up in a place in India where the town I lived in was at the foothills of a mountain range and I just was simply used to seeing mountains albeit from a distance everyday! Thus started my relocation to the River City, with me bracing  for a life without mountains in a city that would have more cloudy and humid days than I would prefer. When I left after the weekend trip, I kept telling myself that spring and summer would be perhaps better in this city.. I had just forgotten a little detail. - my sinuses flare up at the slightest increase in humidity and Richmond was a HUMID place as I would discover a few months later.