One of the true pleasures of living in the Rocky Mountain region is this: sitting under a tree, reading a book. One hopes that those trees are not on fire at the time. Still, a number of factors conspire to make summer reading tailor-made for the shade trees of the West. We are relatively bug-free, humidity is low, and the landscape offers scads of quiet, pretty places to read.

I can’t overstate the almost-pest-free environment. Let’s say it’s a July afternoon and you attempt to read a good book under the glorious branches of a live oak tree in an Orlando, Florida, park. Mosquitoes dive-bomb your head; some land to suck precious bodily fluids. No-see-ums appear out of nowhere to gnaw at your ankles. Red bugs drop from the oak’s Spanish moss. Flies and palmetto bugs use your head for a landing pad. Poisonous toads imported from Brazil lurk around every corner. A coral snake (the most poisonous in North America) lurking in a nearby palmetto sizes you up for a quick nip.

You get the picture…and suddenly understand why sensible Florida readers are ensconced in some nice air-conditioned bookstore cafe.  Bugs are banned in these places, although an occasional roach has been known to show up as a side dish with the raspberry scones.

Now picture yourself under a spreading cottonwood in a park in Wyoming or Colorado. The bugs are kept to a minimum by long winters, high altitude and low humidity (more about that later). Let’s put you in a park in Cheyenne, Wyoming, which is where I live. Mosquitoes do exist, but not in swarms. An occasional loner will buzz around, looking for a meal, but they can be handled with a gentle swat. We have flies and bees and wasps. Deer flies and horse flies can be a problem, as they bite. But keep away from ranches and rodeos and horse flies shouldn’t be a problem. Deer flies mainly are mountain pests. One nice July afternoon, my book and I were driven off a perch overlooking Brainerd Lake in Colorado’s Indian Peaks Wilderness by a batch of aggressive deer flies.

You might ask: what about rattlesnakes. You probably remember that terrifying scene in the “Centennial” mini-series where that young pioneer wife is struck by a rattler in the neck and dies almost instantly. Remember all those westerns where horses are spooked by snakes, dumping their riders who hit their heads on rocks and are paralyzed for life?  Well, this almost never happens to readers.

I have a cowboy friend (let’s call him “Tex”) who reads while he rides the range on his trusty horse (let’s call it “Trigger”). Tex and Trigger were rounding up strays in the Sybille Canyon, a place famous for its snakes. Tex was reading Trigger their favorite book, Proust’s “Remembrance of Things Past.” They came upon a nest of prairie rattlers. This interruption to the flow of the narrative enraged Trigger who stomped the shit out of the snakes. Tex cut off all the rattles, which he fashioned into a nifty little hat band for his Stetson.

The weather suits outdoor readers. A typical Cheyenne summer day starts cool (in the 50s) and dry (10 percent humidity). By noon, it’s 80-something, humidity has crept up to 15 percent, and there is a cooling breeze blowing from the west or south. Just right to pick out a big elm or cottonwood in the park for a reading lunch. My favorite site in Cheyenne is under the trees in Burns Park, named for Scottish poet Robert Burns. When I first saw the massive bronze of Burns, I wondered about the locations for statues celebrating Yeats, Synge, Joyce, Swift, and all the rest of those great Irish writers who were so much better than the Scots. Once this xenophobic twinge passed, I was grateful that there was at least one park in town named for a poet.

Afternoon temps can get into the 90s, but the humidity remains low and the breeze sometimes pushes thunderstorms off the mountains and onto the prairie. This can be a dangerous time to be reading under a tree of any kid. Lots of lightning and high winds. Sometimes hail. Sometimes tornadoes. You don’t want to be under a cottonwood, with its fairly soft and weak wood, at such stormy times. As noted by Stuart Weir in his excellent book “The Native Trees of the Southern Rocky Mountains:” “Old-time westerners know not to hold a picnic under a cottonwood with dead limbs, wind or no wind.” Enough said.

What about other places for summer reading? The beach is nice, but don’t forget that the diminished ozone layer permits enough lethal rays to give you cancer during the course of one John Grisham novel. Besides, the sand gets into everything. Surprisingly, big cities offer a lot of little nooks perfect for summer reading. Denver has some gorgeous green spaces, including the new Confluence Park where Cherry Creek and the Platte River meet near downtown. Portland, Oregon’s, cool downtown offers a number of outdoor spots to chill out with a book (and I’m not just talking about the city’s ubiquitous cafes).

My favorite place to read in D.C. is one of the benches surrounding the fountains outside the National Gallery of Art. Spring and fall are the best times, but this spot can be cool even in summer with the mists flying off the fountains. Some fellow readers in D.C. report that a man looking suspiciously like John Ashcroft has been malingering in this area. He will plop down on a bench, pull out a book, then ask: "Read any good books lately?" Those with the wrong answers can find themselves on the wrong end of an interrogation table at the J. Edgar Hoover Building.

But here’s the hard truth: you can’t find a more picturesque place to read than under some Rocky Mountain tree. Pick a place. The nifty little park next to the hot springs pool in Saratoga, Wyoming. Anywhere along the Cache la Poudre River in northern Colorado (watch out for rattlers at the head of the Greyrock Trail!). Anywhere in Rocky Mountain National Park where you can get on a hiking trail and distance yourself from the Winnebagos (the RV not the Indians). Cottonwood Canyon in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Lolo Creek outside Missoula, Montana. Along Piney Creek near Story, Wyoming. On the trail above the Sundance Institute in Utah.

Pick a book. Pick a place. Read.

Next week: “Under the Spreading Cottonwood Tree”