why I love SL,UT

so to be honest, last week, totally kicked my arse. Between the stress, the flu, the elevation, the dust etc...I haven't been "myself" (whoever the hell she is) There are aspects of this move and this house that are "less than ideal" but I've been trying to keep it all in perspective and yesterday we had a victory in Oma coming home! She's doing fantastic. Shuffling around downstairs, without the walker even! and she ate a good dinner (I made my now two-state-famous quiche - in the toaster oven noless) and she was SOOO happy to be in her own space that any problems/stress so far seemed to melt away.
I decided to take this new euphoria one step further and actually wake up early this morning to go for a walk. Exercise and fresh air have been precious commodities this past few weeks, and I realized that's noone's fault but my own...so, at 7:30 this morning I put on my sassy sneaker-ish-type shoes and hit the incredibly bumpy sidewalk*
Some friends seemed bewildered as to WHY I would want to move back to SL. One friend in Oregon predicts I'll be back in 6 months. Au Contraire!
I love this town.
to be more specific, I LOVE the avenues. This is my home turf. I love the houses (huge Victorians, funky little old houses - many of which with blasted bare brick exteriors - My favorites) I love the yards. On my walk I saw countless "xeriscaped" yards; gorgeous echinacea plants, profusions of tall grasses, sunflowers taller than LGK! Some of them are perfectly manicured, some of them are overrun w/ foliage but they're all lovely in their own way.
I love the *bumpy sidewalks. The trees here are so huge and old that the roots have pushed the sidewalk all skiwampus and I remember tripping and stumbling all the time when I was a kid (they make for fun bike rides too if memory serves)
I love the smells. Sure, when you get downtown it smells like city (exhaust, waste etc.) but up here, it smells like sprinklers & bread. I walked past 3 bakeries/coffeeshops (I can't wait to check them out!) (and Michelle...you just have to know where to look....)
I love the sounds...One of my favorite stories is of the first morning we spent "in the country" in our old digs. The neighbors? they had a donkey. and it was verbally abusing a gaggle of wild turkeys. it was loud. and it was SO overtly "rural". I cried for 2 hours. What the hell was I doing there?!?!? I'm not THAT much of a city girl, but Come On! This morning, I enjoyed the symphony of distant traffic, a few dogs barking and one of my avenues co-dwellers, practicing the violin. It was delightful.
I walked to the West this morning because I'm not quite ready for the N/S hills (baby steps) and before I knew it I'd walked all the way to downtown (about 13 blocks) and then I turned back home on 3rd. That's 26 blocks! Which to some of you may not seem like much, but for me? That's practically a marathon!
And in that distance? 2 dozen Obama signs! Yay
What I DIDN"T see on my walk this morning? NO cars on blocks; NO stray pitbulls; NO guys in wifebeaters, riding tractors.
I'm home