[In the process of switching email addresses for my PW subscription last night, I seem to be missing the original messages of this thread, so I apologize if I've missed the original theme of this discussion] Hello Craig, You wrote: > We also had a fine view of the 2-lane street that winds along > Kirkland's waterfront and I had a chance to watch the people..... > and their cars. > I remember thinking to myself that the drivers of those cars are > buying a persona. A vision of themselves hunting elephants, > exploring remote valleys or maybe kayaking off 186-foot Palouse > Falls. They read the magazines, they watch the television shows, and > they buy the books but they'll never actually do it. No kidding! At the moment, I'm staying with relatives in Bellevue (unfortunately, due to the medical condition of one relative, it may be a longer stay than I had anticipated), and I've seen more very shiny, big 4WD vehicles in this small area than I've seen just about anywhere (even the big gnarly tires are all shined up with Armor All!). You'd think you were in some sort of urban/suburban jungle, and that the "foreboding wild" must be just around every corner (alas, it's just another condo parking lot...filled with even more shiny Land Rovers ready to take on the wilds of the Bellevue/Seattle streets). And then there's me...making a beeline toward any water I can find in my sand filled, relatively rusty old pickup truck held together with just as un-shiny, well used boat racks--with beautiful scratched and gouged up boat(s) on them, ready to get wet at a moment's notice. People seem to like my boats, but they avert their eyes from my not very glamorous--or shiny--vehicle. Must be painful to look at, but I guess I'm used to it. It's been a while since I've done any urban paddling, but this past week has found me paddling day--and night--in the old haunts of my early days of paddling. Lake Union, Lake Washington, the ship canal and locks, and Puget Sound and the San Juans. There is some nice and interesting paddling here, but after living and paddling on the more remote coast for the past 12 years, I've decided that someone else can have the urban/suburban scene, and soon, I'll be back to the more remote and open waters I've become happily accustomed to. All that said, there are quite a few people here who do take advantage of the urban waters and relative beauty of this area, and I'm glad they have this available to them. I just wish that they wouldn't throw so much trash out the windows of their shiny vehicles when they come out to the coast for weekends and Summer holidays (I'm *constantly* picking up "city folk trash" from my driveway and the beach. And yes, don't think that I don't notice all the Seattle/Olympia/Portland area license plate frames as I watch the trash flying out the windows). -- Melissa (former city dweller--Seattle, L.A., NYC--now happily living a quieter, simpler, less shiny life away from the cities). *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Wed Aug 05 2009 - 04:18:49 PDT
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:31:37 PDT