The Pacific Northwest (page 9)

Ilovebirthdays

I love the story. It reminds me of one of the only times I remember ever feeling really happy back when I was a JW was when a family took me with them on their vacation where we drove down to Mexico. We were in San Fransisco and we did Alcatraz, and it was all beautifully foggy. Everyone was trying to cram in where it was warm, but I sat out on the deck hugging my knees to my chest and just smiling because it all felt so good, and I felt so free, even if just for a brief moment. I was cold and soggy when we got in the car, but it was SO worth it.

compound complex

I was cold and soggy when we got in the car, but it was SO worth it.

Love it!

CoCo

compound complex

The sun has returned and cavorts playfully with a few remaining sullen clouds stripped of all earthbound moisture.

Like jagged cloth scraps, a patchwork of light and shadow tumble upon and unevenly blanket the distant hills.

I see darkly through obscuring pine and oak, those broad-trunked, needled and still-somewhat-in-leaf arborescent forms.

An august autumn is bowing out, but much of her flora remains static for so late in the season.

Moving a bit to the right and perched on my haunches, I peer through an unseasonal abundance of foliage in order to capture these fleeting but eternal moments of majestic beauty, that of sky and land.

Justitia Themis

The violent, angry and sullen clouds momentarily give way to the sun. Thongs of crazed, vitamin D deficient humans crowd into the streets for a fleeting glimpse of the brilliant orb. Like a scared child running to hide behind its mother, the sun quickly retreats behind the clouds. The depressed masses, eyes glazed by seasonal affect depression, survey the soggy, moss-covered, decaying landscape, and groan. Obeying their evolutionary instincts, they get in their cars to drive to Starbucks for the drug, caffeine, that is so critical to their survival. With disgust, they observe the ever-present pine needles littering the car floorboards.

compound complex

Justitia T:

Excellent juxtaposing of man and Nature ...

And Starbucks!

Beautiful imagery, too.

Thanks for participating.

CoCo

WhereWasI

Ya Justitia, I remember all those pine needles on my floorboards when out in the field circus!

(Gotta talk soon! If not Happy New Year)

Just to add to this Pacific Northwest thread: I have lived here since 1976. Still love the beauty. It's nice to try to get out of the rain by Jan or Feb but I think it's like that anyplace that requires a coat in the winter. It sure beats Detroit.

WhereWasI

Farkel

CoCo,

I moved to the Great Pacific Northwest(tm) in the early 1990's and lived there for five years. Vancouver, Washington to be precise. I was five miles north of Portland, Oregon. I am still in awe at the magnificent Columbia River. I've been to its mouth in Astoria, OR/Ilwaco, WA. where it is 4 1/2 MILES WIDE as it empties its massive waters into the Pacific Ocean.

I was and still consider myself to be a San Diego boy, so, to say the least, moving up there was an experience that was less traumatic than say, an Iron Maiden punched into my body, but not by much. I moved there to be near my two youngest children. Their mother and her husband moved there from San Diego because her husband had found work there and his family was there. I was not willing to just see my two youngest children over the summers and holidays, so I left my girlfriend of 4 years and moved there cold. I had never been there before.

It was a different planet.

I quickly had to learn their lingo. For example, they would say "didja get yer deer, yet?" and I quickly learned to say "Yew bet!" I discovered that the main entre' on their diner menus was "biscuits and gravy" which to me meant "starch and heaps of grease."

I learned what "freezing rain" meant. It meant when I got out of my car and put my feet down on what looking like perfectly stable asphalt, I will see my leg shoot out from under me and see me land on my back before I could figure out what happened.

I learned what "drizzle" meant. It never rains in Vancouver, WA. It drizzles. Constantly. The sky is near black for 9 months a year and its always dripping water. I can handle a good rain, but it never rains. It "drizzles" 37 inches a year and everyone is depressed. You don't tan there (like in San Diego). You "rust."

They hate people from California. Especially Southern California. I was a leper. Their fashion accessories are what California had 20 years earlier. I had a butt-pack-type-purse and was almost arrested for being gay.

You must own a "John Deere" hat and if you turn the bill towards the back, you will be arrested for something. I forget what.

Women weighed as much as their pickup trucks and EVERYONE had pickup trucks. With gun racks and loaded guns in them. The good news was there are NO drive by shootings, because the bad guys didn't stand a chance with all them gun racks and loaded guns.

It cost fifteen bucks to get a concealed weapons permit. All you had to do was pay your money and say "self-protection" and bam! You had the permit. I liked that part.

Ok. That is the bad news. The only other bad news is that they are so provincial that it takes a long time before they accept outsiders, especially someone like me from Southern California. The good news is, that after a few years, if you are a good guy, they not only adopt you, they will trust you with their lives and support you in anyway within their means. I finally got accepted and that is not an easy thing to do.

Fifteen years later, I still keep in touch with my pals from Vancouver and have gone up north several times to visit with them. I'm still viewed as "accepted" and I feel all warm and fuzzy about that.

My kids are grown now, of course and still live up there. One is married and made me a grandfather. The other is still in college.

It still drizzles, though. Endlessly. They still wear the John Deere hats, have the pickup trucks, gun racks and eat grease and get their deer every year.

From a guy who lived in a near desert, I can also say the scenery is breathtaking and the air and water makes it a paradise in its own little way.

Farkel

compound complex

Greetings, WhereWasI & Farkel:

It's always best hearing from those who know: natives or transplants.

Your account, Farkel, could be akin, albeit from a guy's perspective, to that of Betty MacDonald's tales of the PNW: The Egg and I, Onions in the Stew, etc. Some of those rustics who've given you the warm and fuzzies sound pretty dang close in description and temperament to the Bishops, who become the fabled Kettles. Sounds as though you had quite a soggy time. I, likewise, prefer a good and hard rain to drizzle.

I grew up in the Bay Area, and you know how the fog comes in on little cat's feet; but, darn it, give me more sun and less bloody euphemism!

Thanks!

CoCo

designs

Coco

Thanks for the photo of Mt. Hood, my son and I flew by it a couple of years ago on our way to Moses Lake, it was like ice cream peaking above the clouds. You just wanted to reach out and scoop up a serving. Mmmmmm

compound complex

Good morning, Designs:

Thanks for sharing your high-flying experience! What an apt description - save a scoop for me.

I love mountains. Those in Washington are totally awesome. And the Olympic Forest ...

CoCo

http://www.destination360.com/north-america/us/washington/olympic-rain-forest

The Pacific Northwest

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