Arriving in Washington
Friday, May 8th, 2009I’ve already made a few observations shortly after arriving in Seattle. First off is how GREEN everything is! There was a heavy cloud cover as we flew in, but as soon as the plane dropped below the clouds, I had my first view of the area. It looked like a jungle rain forest dotted with thousands of houses. Which leads me to my next observation…this place is CROWDED! Seeing all those houses built up and down the lush rollings hills reminded me of last summer’s trip to San Francisco. I guess I just always forget that the West Coast is so populated. It kind of makes me feel like I take the peaceful spaciousness of Denver for granted. Yeah, we have traffic there, but NOTHING like the messes of gridlock I’ve experienced in L.A., San Fran, and now Seattle (I took a bus from the airport to Tacoma and it took almost two hours!). I can’t even imagine what the ski traffic is like. I guess my little mile-high cattle town really isn’t that bad after all.
I’ve talked to many people about my plans to attempt Mt. Rainier and have gotten pretty much the same response. They are quite shocked. I won’t even mention their reaction when I tell them we plan to ski it!
When I brought my splitboard on the bus, two separate groups of people asked me “where did you snowboard at?” They naturally assumed I was COMING from someplace else (like Colorado, maybe?) I guess Seattle people aren’t thinking of snowboarding anymore this time of year. Again, they were surprised to hear that I actually came FROM Colorado to snowboard in Washington!
Now I’m chilling in a small suburb of Tacoma waiting for Brian to pick me up en route to Mt. Rainier National Park. If all goes well, we will summit shortly after dawn on Sunday. If not, I’m sure we’ll still have an enjoyable experience. Then I will return to the coast and spend the rest of the week seeing the sights of the Pacific Northwest.
