I really love NC eleven months out of the year

I've never been a fan of August in North Carolina and I feel I have to admit that and come clean on the subject. In late May of 1991 I arrived in North Carolina from Arizona just 20 years old and wondering what awaited me in my new state and at my new college. For the first two months NC felt like a new and strange land and I was unable to fully cope with the extreme differences between the two states. Take, for instance, the differences horizon. In AZ you have one and can look out as far as you like in nearly any direction before you run into a fairly large obstruction such as a mountain. AZ has a great feeling of "openess" and "vastness" that few other place can match. North Carolina, on the other had, is required to cram as many pine trees as closely together and nature can manage with no open spaces greater than 50 feet in any direction (save a shopping mall). The result is you feel like you're "in a hole" in NC when you arrive from AZ (or, as I put it more than once, "standing at the bottom of a pine tree trash can").

This story has a happy ending for NC. I grew to love what the state offered: stubby, smooth mountains to the West and the Atlantic Ocean to the East. In additon you could drive to New York City in six or so hours, or maybe it was seven, I don't remember. Anyway, while I felt trapped and smothered by pine treees and I was unable to see more than 50 feet ahead of me at any one time (or so it felt) I got used to it. Except for one thing.

My first August in Carolina I thought I was going to die. Literally. Haivng lived in Tucson for so long I was used to heat, but not 90 degree heat and 90% humidity. I've told many people this but I'll take 100-110 degress with low, Arizona-type humidity levels to Carolina's 90/90. There were days I could remember the destinct feeling that I should somehow "cut" my way through the air as opposed to walking threw it.

August has gotten easier to tolerate over the years but I still don't like it. In fact had my career in writing sprung to life (ha, yeah, right) I would collect the family for a month-long retreat. Where? Oh, I don't know. Maybe Orcas Island? Mark Turner visited this corner of the country a couple years ago and the weather sounds prefect as a retreat from the August heat of NC.

Kelly is in London, England right now and the weather sounds nice: 68 degrees and cloudy. But you can't take the dogs to the UK so somewhere like Oracs Island would win out.