Monday, June 27, 2005

No Shangri-La

I was surprised to read Gina's comments about our postcard yesterday. She lives in California and writes about how green the vegetation looks in our card. Like many others, I have often thought of California as the almost-perfect environment, except for the odd earthquake. But I suppose that such does not exist — although I still have it in my head that New Zealand would be pretty darn close.


When my maternal grandfather migrated to Canada from England, one of his brothers emigrated to New Zealand. For a long time there was correspondence between the two countries. The families would exchange calendars, and it always looked so darn perfect there that I was a fan long before The Lord of the Rings brought the land of the kiwi to the attention of the rest of the world.


On that long-ago night when I asked Cuppa to marry me, she actually feared that I was about to break the sad news that I had decided to decamp to New Zealand. I'll never get there, but I don't regret my choice, for I have found the almost-perfect woman, and there is no Shangri-La anyway. It's like the old saw about finding the perfect church: "If you do find the perfect church, don't join, for if you do [join] it won't be perfect any longer."


However, if I ever win the lottery, which I won't because I seldom remember to purchase tickets, I think I'll take Cuppa and head to the antipodes for a few months and experience the best of both worlds — marriage to the world's best woman and spending quality time in a pretty, darn great geographical environment.





On our last evening with the kids in Ottawa, we went for a little walk in a park by the [Unmighty] Mississippi. I used Cuppa's camera to take the above shot of the westering sun. As the next photo shows, it was still quite light outside, so I used Photoshop to fake a later-hour sunset.



 

6 comments:

Iona said...

Nice Photoshop job on the sunset picture. Can I see the original?

By the way, I posted my card for you today. Wonder how long it takes before it gets there...

Lora said...

Incredible what you can do with Photoshop.

My first trip to SoCo was as a teen, but I had a very similar immression that you had. However I went during the summer and exerything was brown and dried up. Unless, you were in the manicured and watered part of town. I find the differences in vegetation fascinating.

Valerie - Still Riding Forward said...

Jiggity jig! Getting home is almost my favorite part of any trip.

Glad to see someone is getting out and about.

Dale said...

Welcome home, AC. Glad your back's feeling better.

Gina said...

I agree, I think New Zealand is fabulous as well.

I think it was "Xena the Warrior Princess" episodes that keyed me into the beauty of that island.

Rainypete said...

I think there's probably something about every part of the world that is beautiful. No mater where I go, people alsways seem to want to be somewhere else. Strange, but true.