Good Times Outside of Philadelphia

Whenever I travel, I come to the same conclusion: Philly sucks. Period.

Right now I'm in Albuquerque. "Really?" you say. "Albuquerque, better than Philly?" You bet your ass it is. Within a 20 minute drive at rush hour no less, are beautiful mountains. The high in the winter rarely gets below 65, but there's skiing in those same mountains. It's sunny all the time, and humidity is non existent. The cost of living is squat. For what we paid for our condo, we could have bought a 3K sq ft house on a couple acres, again, just minutes from downtown, the mountains, the river, and work. And the city parks run a shooting range...could you imagine the liberal idiocy if Philly tried to run a public range?

Not to mention I've seen more bike commuters in the last week than I have seen in 2 years of living in Philly. Seriously, bikes are everywhere. The roads are all wide and have nice shoulders. And, we're at 6500 feet in the city, with elevations as high at 12000 in the mountains. Great heart and lung building area.

Sure there are downsides...it's hot in the afternoon, so I run in the mornings when it's 60. I don't think my black dog would be wild about it, but i don't mind. It's a long way to other places, hundreds of miles of desert seperate the cities, but i don't think that's a downside for me. And there's only one Level 1 trauma facility in all of NM. Crazy considering there are at least 4 in Philadelphia alone.

I wonder how my wife is enjoying Virginia?