Our BetterMost Community > The Holiday Forum
Happy Longerdays!
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on August 26, 2022, 11:30:30 am ---For nearly 20 years, when the weather was clear, I could see the most beautiful sunsets in October from my condo. I would check the time of sunset in my almanac, and many times I've stood by my dining room windows and actually watched the sun sink below the horizon. Then just after sunset the sky overhead could be a very deep navy blue in color. As you moved your eyes from directly above down to the horizon, the sky went through all the colors of the rainbow down to a very deep red just at the horizon.
Now the new high rise next door blocks my view to the west-southwest, where the sun sets in October.
--- End quote ---
Wow, sounds beautiful and very frustrating to lose it. I'm lucky in my current place -- I look out onto a city park. That won't change within my lifetime. The biggest problem I have at this time of year is a some thick trees that semi-obscure the setting sun during part of its arc (and I can't see the horizon at all). But it's hard to complain about a view of trees.
In that way, though, sunsets are actually better in winter, when the trees are leafless. When I first moved in I thought, this is going to be great! Beautiful sunsets in the depths of winter! What I failed to account for was how far south the sun is during winter's depths. It's hidden behind another wing of the (five-story) building all but a couple of hours a day. By sometime in February, though, it emerges from the end of that wing and sunsets were at their beauty peak. I took a lot of cool photos of the brilliant red or orange sky behind trees. Well, as cool as iPhone photos from your balcony get, anyway.
Front-Ranger:
My house faces east, so there's my yard (with a large maple tree), the road, the neighbors' yards and trees, their facades and roofs, etc. So I don't see the sun until at least a half-hour after sunrise. There's a steep slope and about a dozen steps down to the back yard, which faces west. And more trees, which partially obscure the sunsets. Fortunately, on the top floor, there's a large deck where I can look out and see the sunsets and the mountains.
The mountains don't really obscure the sunsets here at all. Reason is because we are already so high; Denver is the mile-high city! The Alps are way more impressive than the Rockies, even though they're not nearly as tall, because they rise from a lower plain or valley. We have big skies and spectacular sunsets! Jeff, if your view was cut off like that, you have been robbed! Did they make you sign a waiver when you bought your place?
serious crayons:
For a while there my newspaper beat included covering Carver County, an traditionally rural county that now had a couple of towns of about 25,000, a town of about 12,000, one of about 9,000 and a few much smaller. There's still farmland in between, but it's shrinking.
When I was about 20 I worked in one of the towns. At the time it was about three blocks long, surrounded by open fields. Now its population has quintupled. Suburban developments and chain restaurants and stores sprawl out in every direction. The county is the fastest growing in the state (and the wealthiest).
Residents are constantly opposing new developments for ruining the views from their houses. "I moved here 10 years ago so I could have this beautiful view" people would say. I'd always think, "How do you suppose the people who moved here 20 years ago (or 30, or 40, or 50) feel about YOUR house?"
It got particularly intense over a parcel of land owned and occupied by Prince and his ex-wife. After they divorced he razed the house (he was living in his nearby recording studio, Paisley Park, also in Carver County, when he died). His heirs sold the property for a development of upscale houses. When the city council discussed it, city hall was overflowing. (The council approved it after the developer pledged to donate part of the property for a park.)
Anyway, when people complained about that kind of thing, government officials would sometimes say, "If you want to keep your view in Carver County, you have to buy it."
But in fact, you wouldn't have to. You could just live next to a park. The county has two big parks and an arboretum. A friend lives in a giant sprawling condo complex that's kind of ugly, but her unit looks out onto a bike trail that won't be demolished anytime soon.
So long story short: one of the things I like about my apartment is it looks out onto a city park. Nobody's going to suggest changing it -- if a city hall overflowed over Prince's place, a park would make it explode. There's also a wetlands back there, developing on which, I believe, is illegal.
Front-Ranger:
It seems like just yesterday I was warning people that the sun was going to start setting before 8 pm. But now I see that in just a day or two, it's going to set before 7 pm! Stop the world, I want to get off!
Jeff Wrangler:
It seems to me that in years past, by now I would have moved my summer shirts to the rear of the closet and begun to wear my fall/winter shirts. Not this year.
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