Seattle Coda

It'll probably take lots of time for this trip's true ramification to fully develop in my imagination and view of the world. If that doesn't make sense, I'll be expounding on that either later today or in later days.

Seattle, by way of rain (they say), is one of the West's cleanest cities. It retains a blue collar identity despite the hipsters and hi-tech industries. The strong labor identity is born out of the long logging and maritime history, which together sprouted the port and grew it to one of the west coast's largest. It, like our own here in Long Beach, celebrated it's centennial this year. How crazy is that?

Strangely, despite the large amounts of bicyclists and other water-based activities/excursions, there is a very high proportion of tobacco smokers in Seattle. I thought there were a lot of smokers in New York; Seattle might have a higher proportion

The city has nice energy. The region has many feelings: it feels like California transplanted in Canada; it feels like it identifies more with Alaska than more liberal minded cities similar to itself like San Francisco and New York. It feels unmistakably like Western America.

You get the sense they're alienated from the greater idea of America, like a west coast hybrid of Canadian politeness and Californian pride and Alaskan ruggedness that is totally distinct from America and yet can only be the product of American history and ideals; America at it's most logical base definition: taking bits from different cultures and making them defining, a creolization if you will. That's an American thing; turning a pidgin into a definition, a creole. And Seattle's that, for certain.

I'm sorry that we didn't really get to see any of the aboriginal mystic-ness, or felt the true power of the woods from the point of view of the native cultures, but we could really only do so much without a car and using buses for our adventure's transportation.

It was truly a wonderful seventy hours in Washington State.

Postscript notes:

Their state highway shields have a silhouette of George Washington...cute and campy at the same time. Also, King County, which houses Seattle, has appropriated Martin Luther King Jr as it's mascot, which is great for MLK, but seems like an homage and not a genuine show of history. Oh well, the history of the region's black population is varied and rich, and is celebrated.