Tropical Paradise......Yeck!

Almost all the ads I see on TV--and quite a few on internet--showing people on vacation, always show them in some tropical paradise. In the movies, when someone makes a big score--as in ripping someone off for a lot of money--they always head for some tropical paradise. Why? What is it about the average white person that makes them think that living in the tropics is so great? (Try living there without air conditioning, or screens on your windows, or without bottled water, like the natives do.)

First of all, white folks aren't supposed to get too much exposure to the sun. We don't have the melanin in our skin for it to be healthy for us. After all, our ancestors developed white skin (which is just another way of saying "lack of melanin") because they lived in Northern Europe, England, Scotland, Ireland, or Scandinavia where a sunny day was rare and appreciated and we didn't need the melanin to get in the way of our skin making the vitamin D necessary for a whole bunch of necessary metabolic functions. Now, tourists flock to sunny Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, Belize, and various other "tropical paradises" to get severely sunburned or to slather themselves with sunscreens by the pint in order to enjoy all that sun.

Well, that's just a genetic reason to not like tropical paradises. I, personally, don't like the heat and humidity, nor all the bugs and creepy-crawly things that come with it. I've spent a fair amount of time in Puerto Vallarta. I have a friend in Mexico. She's a widow with a big house in Guadalajara and a condo in Puerto Vallarta. We've spend a lot of time together in P.V. She loves it. Soon, she says, she will sell the house and move to P.V. permanently. And, won't I come along with her. (She really likes me.)

I've tried to explain to her that along about the end of September, no later than the second week of October, I like a good frost. And, for Christmas, I like a bit of snow. In fact, I like a lot of snow. Not 10 to 12 feet of it, but 2 to 3 feet is fine. And, getting snowed in once in a while is okay too. I prefer chilly weather in the Spring and Fall and cold in the Winter. Summers, to be perfect, shouldn't be more than 90 to 95, with low humidity. She doesn't even appear to hear me. She can't imagine anyone in the world who wouldn't love P.V. once they have been there. So, she ignores, or downplays what I tell her.

There is another difference too. I am a country boy, born and raised in farm country in Southern Wisconsin. I really don't like big cities. (Anything over 25,000 people is getting too big for me to be comfortable.) I prefer living out in the country away from others, preferably in highlands of the arid West.

My Mexican lady friend wants me to move to Mexico permanently and to marry her. I will have to let her down gently. The only way I can see that happening is if we live in her tropical paradise of P.V. for 6 months a year, then in my temperate paradise of, oh I don't know, South Central Colorado--not too high an elevation but with grand views of a few 12 to 14 thousand foot, snow-capped peaks--for the other six months.

Of course, that probably wouldn't work. While in P.V. I would just be marking time until I could get back to what I consider--as so many foolish people say--"God's country." As if God didn't make it all. And my lady friend would be doing the same the other six months of the year. So, I guess I will have to forget about her, and she me. She can have her tropical paradise. Everyone who can afford to live there is welcome to it. I definitely prefer pines to palms. If I never see another native, naturally growing palm tree, it will be fine by me. Tropical paradise....yeck!