Friday after work in one of "the 19 best"

Tucson was just listed in October's OUTSIDE magazine as one of 'the 19 best towns' in the country...


After you've lived anywhere for a while, the 'honeymoon' wears off and quotidian reality sets in, producing the occasional love/hate-fest of 'home'-town-feelings...The past couple of years in Tucson have had their ups and downs for us...


But yesterday evening, after work, I went for a bike ride in Sabino Canyon--featured in the OUTSIDE article, and rightly so. (I'm not exaggerating when I say that it's one of the most beautiful places in the Southwest.) The recent monsoon rains have filled the creek and pools in this oasis in the Santa Catalina Mountains--a good reminder of one of the 'pluses' that can outweigh the 'minuses' of living here...

So, with scenery like this a ten-minute drive from home (well, plus the hike/bike-ride into the canyon), yes...there are worse places to live...


If you're curious what the 'rest of the best' are, check out these links:

Reader's Choice for Best Town Ever (?): Chattanooga, Tennessee
Portland, Oregon
Issaquah, Washington
Boulder, Colorado
Missoula, Montana
Charleston, South Carolina
Wilmington, North Carolina
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Durango, Colorado
Madison, Wisconsin
Traverse City, Michigan
Tucson, Arizona
Flagstaff, Arizona
Ashland, Oregon
Chico, California
Portland, Maine
Hardwick, Vermont
Burlington, Vermont
Ithaca, New York 


Some more fact-checking could've been done, though...


The blurb about Issaquah states that it's 'only a 20-minute from downtown Seattle and oyster-flats'...
Huh!? MAYBE on a post-apocalyptic traffic-free Sunday morning, you can make it from Issaquah to downtown, and 'oyster flats' of Puget sound are definitely further afield...The article about Portland, ME says that you can ski and then surf on the same day--hmm, so after a several hour drive down from the snowy mountains on the ME/NH border, one is going to don a wetsuit for the frigid North Atlantic in January? Really?! 


Caveat lector.


But the list is a fun way to gauge cities' 'liveableness'--if your definition is skewed toward outdoors-recreation and scenic splendor...At least it gives you an idea where to go for a vacation; for relocation, though, don't rely on a magazine article...