In the picture you are looking at my house in Mount Vernon.
Well, actually, what used to be my house in Mount Vernon. It was sold in 2002.
The house was built in 1985. I lived there from then til I moved to Texas in December of 1998.
When I moved to Texas it was to a house I had not seen with my own eyes. I'd only seen pictures.
This morning's melancholy has me feeling a bit homesick for Washington. I think what got me started on the melancholy thing was Betty Jo Bouvier's weekend stay in Leavenworth, an Alpine Bavarian type village set on the eastern side of the Cascade foothills
There are no Alpine villages in a mountain setting in Texas.
There is a town called Alpine, in Texas, in sort of a mountain-like setting, down in the Big Bend Country Region of Texas. But, it is no Leavenworth.
I'm thinking if I still had a house up in Washington, I would move back. Having a place waiting for you to move in, makes the moving thing way easier.
When you live in Western Washington you are close to mountains and ocean beaches. If you're in the mood for a total scenery change it is a relatively short drive over the Cascades to Eastern Washington, with its more desert-like climate, turned green in a lot of locations courtesy of the Columbia River's many dams and reservoirs.
Going over to Eastern Washington in summer and fall you can get yourself all kinds of fresh fruit.
Where I lived in Washington it was about a 20 mile drive, to Anacortes, to get on a ferry to go to the San Juan Islands or Canada.
In Washington I lived about 40 miles from another country. Vancouver was just a bit further north than Seattle was south.
The San Juan Islands is in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains. Meaning the islands get way less rain than you get if you are closer to the Cascade Mountains. The New York Times recently had a list of the 41 places in the world you need to go to in 2011. The San Juan Islands was #2 on the list.
When I lived in Washington I took living in one big theme park for granted, because it was what I'd always known. Only when you move away, and return for a visit, do you really see real clear, for the first time, just how special the Pacific Northwest is.
The scenery, the tall trees, the air smelling like Christmas trees, all the fresh produce, some growing wild, like blackberries and blueberries.
The fresh seafood.
I could drive about 15 miles and catch fresh dungeness crab and dig horse clams. I lived 2 miles from the Skagit River. You can easily catch salmon in the Skagit River. Or any of the Washington rivers. And eat the fish you catch. Unlike the polluted waterway I currently live about a mile from called the Trinity River.
In Texas my big hiking thrill, which I will likely do today, is to hike some short hills. In Washington I could see the Mount Baker volcano from my living room. It was a short drive to hike up a real mountain. It was a short drive to hike up all sorts of mountains.
Well, I better get going if I want to get a hike in on some Texas hilly scrubland called the Tandy Hills Natural Area, so I can make it to my Valentines Day lunch at the appointed time.
