100 Great Things About Living Here

The post I just wrote (about schooling blues) seemed pretty negative to me, so I thought I'd see if I could quickly list 100 of the things I love about living here. It really wasn't that hard. Here they are (although I'm sure I'll think of many more over the next few days):

1. Sunshine almost every day.
2. Looking out my back window and seeing for over 100 miles.
3. The ever changing, enormous sky. Sky-watching.
4. Being able to see almost all of the sky (no trees).
5. Summer thunderstorm clouds.
6. Monsoon season with spectacular summer thunderstorms.
7. Watching our kids enjoy the puddles (sitting water is a great novelty) after a spectacular summer thunderstorm.
8. Badger Butte (the beautiful butte about 11 miles away when I look out my back window).
9. Nipple Butte (also out my back window; a distinctive landmark that is aptly named).
10. The Hopi Buttes (a whole landscape of old volcanic cores – we can see some of them out our back window and others as we drive to Winslow.)
11. Spectacular sunsets filling the whole sky.
12. Spectacular sunsets that make Badger Butte glow crimson.
13. Med-evac airplanes landing and taking off on the airstrip about ¼ mile out our back window (my kids love them).
14. Med-evac helicopters that sometimes come, as well.
15. Walking to The Tree with my family (about 1 ½ miles away).
16. The Tree itself (a lovely big cottonwood).
17. The wash The Tree sits in (a place of dry sandy fun most of the year; very occasionally, a rushing river).
18. Walking anywhere behind our house with our family.
19. Finding beetles as we walk (in the summer).
20. Watching harvester ants in the summer.
21. Watching hummingbirds fight each other off at our feeder in the summer.
22. Watching other little birds congregate at our seed feeders the rest of the year.
23. The fact that despite night time temperatures in the single digits and brown clay soil, our outdoor mint has continued to produce edible leaves throughout this winter (did I mention the sunshine almost every day)?
24. The fact that our house faces south (thus taking good advantage of the sunshine almost every day).
25. The beautiful, open architecture of our Southwestern-style house.
26. The abundance of light and sunshine that fills our house every day.
27. The sense of community among the medstaff living here.
28. The wonderful informal potlucks residents here host for each other fairly frequently.
29. The incredible vegetarian food served at those potlucks (people here can really get into cooking).
30. The many Hopi runs that take place and the fun sense of community expressed at those runs.
31. The Hopi Wellness Center (an incredible, free workout center that includes high-quality, free childcare), and that I, even though I am a pahanna, am somehow eligible for.
32. Bacavi Community Fellowship Church.
33. Our wonderful, informal, never-know-what-to-expect, flexible 2-3 hour church services.
34. Singing congregational-chosen hymns and choruses for an hour each Sunday morning at our church.
35. Singing Hopi language songs at church.
36. Not feeling overly self-conscious when I badly attempt to sight-read strange hymns as I accompany worship with the piano (because nobody is being critical).
37. The wonderful and dedicated Christians, both Hopi and pahanna, that we know from our church.
38. The spectacular view from the windows of our mesa-top church.
39. Potlucks at our church (usually NOT heavy on the vegetarian food, unless we bring it!)
40. Amazon.com & free shipping (yeah, you can get this wherever you live, but it has special meaning to us here because of how far away we have to go to shop).
41. Netflix.com (see above).
42. Priceline.com (we do enough travel that this has become an incredibly useful and fun way to plan our trips and stay in nice hotels).
43. Curling up with Husband after the kids are in bed, putting on a Netflix, opening up a pint of Haadgen Daz, & feeling like it is a Grand Occasion.
44. Learning to rock-climb from other medstaff in Jack's Canyon.
45. Burning the local cedar, pinon, and aspen we bought in Flagstaff in our back-yard fire pit.
46. The clear night sky on the reservation and amazing star show that is available to us.
47. All the Really Cool Places there are to visit within a four hour driving radius of our house.
48. Going camping in some of those Cool Places.
49. 30 days of paid vacation for Husband a year.
50. Having the time and expendable income to do some cool vacations.
51. Having the time & expendable income to treat friends & family to some sight-seeing when they come to visit us (hear that, friends & family)?
52. Living in a place that actually makes friends & family want to come visit us for reasons other than just us (this never happened when we lived in York, PA)!
53. Military benefits without really being in the military.
54. Fort Tuthill Military Recreation Area in Flagstaff.
55. Staying in a cabin or A-frame at Fort Tuthill.
56. Enjoying the snow tube run at Fort Tuthill.
57. Bright sunshine almost every day.
58. The San Francisco Peaks, our own personal mountain range.
59. Gazing at the San Francisco Peaks almost every day, even though they are over 100 miles away.
60. Watching the sun set behind the San Francisco Peaks and turn the sky red; seeing them silhouetted against the burning sky.
61. Visiting Flagstaff & getting onto the flanks of the San Francisco Peaks.
62. Hiking in Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon.
63. The West Fork Trail in Oak Creek Canyon.
64. The fascinating, picturesque mesa-top villages on the Hopi Reservation.
65. The wonderful celebration and sense of community and pageantry expressed at Hopi social dances (although the jury – i.e. our Christian Hopi friends – seems to be out on whether or not Christians should attend those dances).
66. The fact that my husband can walk to work.
67. The fact that my husband usually walks home for lunch, even if it’s only for five minutes.
68. The cottonwood & Navajo Willow trees my husband planted in our yards.
69. Watching our Hopi Christian friends make their faith their own.
70. The sense of adventure our friends here have; their appreciation for a lot of what we believe is important in life.
71. Not having any kind of TV reception at all!
72. Watching our kids grow up less exposed to what we believe are some of the negative aspects of American culture.
73. Having a health care center, staffed with friends, within easy walking distance.
74. The fairly laid-back, positive experience of delivering a baby in a health care center staffed by friends, and being able to walk back home right afterwards.
75. The bright, yellow wildflowers that sprang up in the desert and in our yard last summer.
76. Driving to the post office with my kids to pick up our mail (it’s always something of an occasion).
77. Navigating the pockmarked, seen-better-days road through the village of Polacca to get to the post office, while seeing how fast I can drive without hitting any big potholes. (Answer: not very fast.)
78. Helping the Papaya open our PO Box & watching both the children excitedly pulling the mail out.
79. Finding a package slip in our PO Box & the excitement of redeeming it at the window for a package!
80. Never knowing whether our trash is going to be picked up on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. I actually like the quirkiness of the system!
81. Learning about the local flora, fauna, & systems & figuring out how things work here.
82. Seeing life as an adventure.
83. Having lots and lots of space.
84. Idyllic summer evening weather.
85. The fact that going shopping is a family occasion (Husband would not consider this a positive, but I usually enjoy our shopping marathons in Flagstaff, as long as I’m not alone).
86. The fun of stocking up, then making do (sometimes creatively) until the next shopping marathon.
87. Spending the night in a Flagstaff hotel & splashing in their pool & hot tub with my family.
88. The excitement of a winter snow and watching the San Francisco Peaks become snow covered.
89. Exploring ancient cliff dwellings and discovering petroglyphs at nearby Canyon de Chelley, Betatakin, and Montezuma's Castle.
90. Slowly making friendships with other Hopi.
91. Taking a tour of Walpi Village, the 2nd oldest continuously inhabited village in the United States (the oldest village is also on the Hopi Reservation, but is not as spectacular).
92. Taking friends on a tour of Walpi Village.
93. Singing Hopi language Christmas carols at the electricity-less homes of elderly people in the villages at Christmas time – a truly cross-cultural experience.
94. The novelty, excitement, and sense of accomplishment of actually helping something nice (besides mint) to grow in our yard.
95. Learning to appreciate the beauty of rocks as a primary landscaping medium.
96. Watching trains and experiencing the green grass and wonderful food at La Posada in Winslow.
97. Suddenly having the Little Painted Desert open up in front of us when we take a short turn-off off the road from Winslow to the Hopi Reservation.
98. The somewhat quirky honor of being asked to be the local leadership of the Mennonite Voluntary Service, even though we’re not (nor have we ever been) Mennonite, just because there was nobody else who seemed to fit the bill.
99. The Hopi Mission School, which brings back happy memories of small missionary schools I grew up with.
100. Often having the feeling that we’re living in another country, but without being too far away from a lot of our friends & family.
101. (Bonus) Did I mention it already? Wonderful sunshine streaming into my house almost every day of the year!