Sixth Floor Livin'

They have rules in various parts of this country about how high a building can be before an elevator is put in... in some parts, it's 7 floors; here, it's 6 floors. As you can imagine, there are a lot of 6 story buildings because of the much higher expense that comes along with putting in an elevator. Our apartment building is one of those, and we are blessed to be living on the 6th floor.

I'm sure you can identify the major disadvantage to living on the 6th floor: the long walk up, especially with 4 little legs and one little one to carry (plus bags, groceries, etc.). Another disadvantage seems to be getting delivery guys to bring things all the way up-- it costs more to get them to bring it up 6 floors, rather than, say, 2 floors.

But there are some advantages too (and if one day in the future you hear me griping, please remind me of these!)-- for example, when we hear footsteps this high up, there's a pretty good chance they're coming to see us (as opposed to our old apartment where we heard people walking past our front door day and night). Another benefit is that my calf muscles are definitely getting worked out and I'm getting more and more able to make it to the top without breathing too hard. Finally (and this is really nice), we can leave small items right outside our door and not impede anyone else's pathway for walking on the stairs! This is really nice-- for dirty shoes, bagged-up trash, a muddy soccer ball, etc. But I think the biggest advantage are the views of the mountains all the way around our apartment. The picture above was from last night's sunset over the mountains. With such benefits, we're not minding life on the 6th floor too much!