Will It Ever Be Summer Here?
It’s hot here, in Puget Sound parlance. Sorry, John from Texas and anyone else moldering in more hostile climes, but I’m gonna bitch anyway about 96-degree weather. Even if it does drop to the mid-60s in the evening. Understand that I have no air conditioning either in my house or in my car, and I haven’t had the presence of mind to schedule client visits to those of the economic stratum that actually have air conditioning. You guys have issues. You know you do. You need to call me.
Since I’m flying to Milwaukee Sunday, I sorta blew today off, work-wise. I’d been thinking earlier in the week of doing an overnight kayak trip, but stuff kept pushing me later and later in the week, and I really don’t want to battle the hoi polloi for beach space on a summer weekend.
So, my grandiose plan got funnelled down to a day trip today. I launched from the beach in Mukilteo, a town north of Seattle, near Everett, which I know mostly for its Washington State Ferry service to Whidbey Island. Of course, my impeccable timing combined with my congenital morning sloth saw me launching at 1:30 PM, pretty much high noon, Daylight-Savings-Wise. On the hottest day of the year.
I paddled up to the port of Everett, then back south to somewhere near Picnic point. There wasn’t anything really remarkable about this part of the Sound, but I’d never paddled this particular shoreline, there was an afternoon Mariners game that dissuaded me from heading south, and, ultimately, I needed to just point myself out the door or I wouldn’t have left the house at all. Through some ham-handedness that I won’t elaborate on just now, this is the only photo I have from the trip worth posting:
I thought it might be a little cooler on the water, but there wasn’t much breeze, and the only respite was to dip my hands into the 50-degree water, which felt like shoving them into the freezer, and provided agreeable relief.
After I got home and stowed all my kayaking gear, Mrs. Perils evinced a desire to walk a bit. On such a night, where else would we walk but Gasworks Park:
Clicky-click to enlarge.
It looks like an Ingmar Bergman skeleton-dance up there on the hill, but when we got up there, everyone was possessed of adequate human flesh except this unfortunate pilgrim. Don’t know what his particular complaint was, but I think I might like his shoes:
