Ondreij said:
Portland, Seattle, San D, etc. are all cities.
I've been to plenty of forests (where there are forests -- there aren't any in So Cal)
You should visit more often. There were plenty around Big Bear and such when I was living there a few months ago!
When was the last time you had to brave tempertures under zero degrees F. along the West Coast? Unless you are talking in the mountains, above 5,000 feet
Are we really playing the "I've lived lots of places" game? I was just giving some insight why someone might want to dress warmly, and extending a friendly invite to come join us. But okay... I've lived in (and I'm there are folks who are more well-traveled than I): Maine, Massachusetts (heck, it's where I started playing NERO 20ish years ago), New York, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Florida, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Kansas, California, Germany, Italy, France, Netherlands, Texas (growing up an army brat does that to ya). 5000 feet doesn't get you halfway up Mt Hood, though, much less a third of the way up Mont Blanc. I've been through hellacious snow storms, tornado-stricken flatlands, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, and more. People define what is cold to them at varying degrees. For my father, it entailed flying rescue missions through the Rockies and coming across three brothers who were found dead, frozen in a huddle around their littlest sister who was grasping onto the barest threads of life after they got lost in a flash whiteout after walking in circles less than 100 yards from their rural school bus stop to their farmhouse. For most people, it's quite a bit less. And I'm sure we both agree that it's rarely just about temperature, it's about whether conditions, exertion, etc. But we're not playing Man vs Wild here, though. Like I said, just giving some insight on why warm costuming might be desirable, and I'm not sure that deriding people for not being "cool enough" (pun intended) to polar bear it and might be looking at warm costuming ideas is particularly helpful in this regard.