Deep Breaths and Lotsa Water...

So, altitude. It's very high here (heh heh--high). We're just over 6,000 feet, which is higher than Denver, the mile-high city. So the air is thinner, which means there's less oxygen, blah blah blah. From what I've heard in about 2 months our bodies will be making more red blood cells--enough to compensate--and we won't feel like taking a nap all the time. In the meantime I'm trying to drink lots of water and not over-exert myself. "Oh, Cat Daddy, I can't unpack that box; it's the altitude. I'd better take a snooze instead"...

...When I came here for househunting in June I caught a familiar vibe, similar to how things were in Dayton. Similar to a Midwestern vibe--down home, laid-back, sensible, and friendly. But with cowboys. A couple weeks after I was here they held their annual Frontier Days, which is loosely based around a giant rodeo. I think. And the state license plate has a little rodeo cowboy on it, so one should expect to see a lot of Wranglers around town. Throw in a military base, an oil refinery, and you come up with friendly, hardworking and/or blue collar folks with just a hint of "Aww, shoot." Kind of an interesting mix, but not at all incompatible with itself.

This means that, where I had a subtle surfer-dude vibe in Lompoc, here I picked up a mild twang within minutes. It's one of my quirks--picking up bits & pieces of the local accent. I'm not sure if it makes me appear more hip on the local feel or just plain silly, but thus far I've been unsuccessful in stopping myself. And I don't care enough to really, really try. And no one else seems to care all that much either, so that's that...

...So you've got Dell Range Blvd, the main drag. Here you will find the mall and many of the major chains, including big box retailers and restaurants. If it's not in Cheyenne, you can drive 45 minutes to Fort Collins & probably find it there. The Cat Daddy pointed out that we have not had such a readily-available opportunity to spend our money in close to 4 years. Oh we had stores in Mass, just not any within a half-hour of where we lived. Most people's kneejerk reaction is "I have to drive 30 minutes to Target??"--which was certainly my first thought. But over the long term we found ourselves saving a good bit of money because if we wanted something we'd first have to decide if it was worth driving to Franatickingham (Framingham & Natick--towns next to each other geographically--in one convenient fake name) to get it. Often it wasn't, or at the very least could wait until our roughly-monthly shopping trips. Inconvenient, perhaps, but fantastic for the checkbook.

But now we live about three miles off of Dell Range Blvd, and consequently within about 6 miles of pretty much anywhere we'd want to go on a regular basis. The other day we went to Olive Garden, where we hadn't eaten probably since sometime in 2004. In Dayton. The Cat Daddy said "Hey let's eat at Olive Garden." I said, "OK, but I thought you didn't like Olive Garden." He said "Oh I like it fine, I just got tired of it when we lived in Dayton," to which I replied, "And I can pretty much guarantee that you will grow tired of it again."

Whole wheat pasta--eh. Not bad for a healthier choice, but definitely not as good as the refined, white stuff. Mmmmmm, refined white stuff...

...When we drove into our neighborhood we found a profusion of multifarious trailers. RV's, horse trailers, boats, personal watercraft, some sort of racing apparatus (dirtbikes?), and so on. And 4-wheelers. Some demonstrated great affluence and/or a weekend-leisure-warrior vibe, while others fairly screamed something on the order of "urban hick." Or something. The Cat Daddy asked if I'd noticed all of this before and I swear, when I was here the trailers were almost entirely absent. A strange phenomenon. Not at all a dealbreaker, or even necessarily a negative thing. Just something we noticed...

...The Cat Daddy has XM. He acquired it when he bought his car last year, and kept up the subscription anticipating a great lack of decent radio stations in Cheyenne. I have not yet caved to satellite radio, so I have been doing the "seek" and "scan" functions while driving along. I seem to have found a fairly palatable station which sometimes seems along the lines of Oldies, which is good as far as I'm concerned, but other times leans toward a mix-type of thing. Either way, it seems to be halfway decent. Surprisingly more funk than one would expect from the land of cowboys and country. But hey, I'll take it...

...As for the house, it's all we dreamed and more. The best part is by far the basement, with its wall of built-in shelves glistening in white and the cable/internet up & running. It feels luxuriously cavernous down there (here, actually--we put the office down here too), but probably the main reason for this is that there's very little down there yet. When the Cat Daddy and Mr. Z unloaded the truck yesterday they put all the boxes in the garage as a staging area. Now our job is to wade thru everything and figure out placement in the house and/or yard sale box(es).

I'm no slug, mind you--I wrangled a certain little toddler and did various food runs & sundry errands. And we found that our dryer outlet was set up for four-prong plugs, while our dryer cord had three prongs. First I bought a three-pronged outlet to put in the four-pronged outlet's place. Upon some confusion about what to do with the extra wire, however, I consulted with my dad, who suggested keeping the outlet and replacing the dryer cord, so as to prevent the necessity of future outlet replacements. So I put back the four-pronged outlet and exchanged the three-pronged outlet for a four-pronged dryer cord, which was more expensive but should be more effective in the long run. What did I do with the extra wire? My understanding is that the extra wire is a ground so per Dad's instructions I threw it in next to the white wire and called it good. I should know what the white wire is for, but I don't. Then I turned the power back on and started the dryer, and not only did it not explode, but it ran as normal. I am awesome...

...But the altitude is still presenting the highest learning curve for me. I haven't actually cooked yet, but I will need to be mindful of directions that may need changing to compensate. Today in the store I picked up some yogurt and was leery at first because the foil toppers were bulging a bit. I'd always thought one is supposed to steer clear of bulging foil since it could indicate some bad yogurt, but darn it they were all bulge-y. Then I realized that they were probably packaged somewhere that isn't at 6,000 feet, and transporting the containers to the higher altitude would make them bulge. So I bought them. They taste fine...

The Cat Daddy is unloading a box so I'd better go find a place to snooze before he recruits me to help...