Mukilteo Musings

I Cannot Believe I Get to Live Here

The Seattle Sunday Times had a gorgeous article called "A Natural Identity" about the wild places within and without our city. The photos were breathtaking and were excerpted from a new book called "Wild Seattle". I want this for Christmas so Dave if you are reading this---please??!! The last paragraph of the article gave me goosebumps:

"Most city-dwellers connect to the marine world simply by hopping on a ferry. Washington has the nation's biggest fleet. As a boat slips out of downtown Seattle, the city falls away quickly. In short order, the world is all water and mountains in this great bowl of Puget Sound. This region is sometimes called Ecotopia, which I think is a reach. Seattle has an active environmental conscience, as do Portland, Vancouver, and San Francisco, but it is not because the people are any more virtuous in regard to the environment. It is because the natural world is so close, so ingrained in daily life. The outdoors — mountain, sea, and forest — are shared living rooms, not abstractions. Even in a thick fog, crossing Puget Sound by ferry, you feel it: the call of the wild so close to the urban center. At times, I hold my breath."
by Timothy Egan

Go to this link for some fabulous pictures of my beloved home from this great article and book:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/pacificnw/2004/1121/cover.html

Yes, at times, I hold my breath so here are some of Lucas's photos from the North Cascades just right over there as I point left from my computer. They are from last summer and include three of his buddies. By the way, the term "Cascades" is derived from the "cascades" of water flowing everywhere out of the mountains on the way to Puget Sound. What a gift we gave our children to raise them here!