50 Shades Of Green

Picture mid-January in the northeastern US.It's so cold your face hurts, you wear so many layers that you look like the Michelin man, your skin tone is a ghostly pallor. I dare you not to think: why couldn't I be in a warm place? Warmth, of course, is relative and in those gelid and dark winter months, I often find myself thinking of California, particularly of San Francisco with its "balmy" 50°F (10°C) winters. Some complain that SF is the city of four seasons...every day. And while it's also true that summers tend to be on the cool side and fog is common, I think these are actually small prices to pay for 260 annual days of sunshine.

But it wasn't sun that attracted people to SF in the first place; it was gold. Discovered in the mid-1800's, it brought rapid population growth in a unique combination of fortune-seekers, sailors, immigrants and artists. And like any other mining town and port, SF had its share of permissiveness in bars and nightclubs that only grew after Prohibition: the "bohemian clubs" around the North Beach neighborhood became popular with marginalized groups (communists, anarchists, homosexuals among others), and the city's openness to all people and all lifestyles became widely known. As a result, SF is the most liberal place in the US nowadays. And perhaps because they are so open-minded, San Franciscans love novelty and the city is at the forefront of innovation: there are countless startups in the area, and locals are early adopters, often the first to get a look at new technology and apps.

Also on the US west coast but further north and not nearly as sunny is Seattle. On average, Seattle is overcast 220 days annually, and in some years the sun does not appear at all during winter months. Perhaps because the city gets so much grey, some inhabitants take it upon themselves to brighten up Seattle...by colorfully dyeing their hair. Lime green, anyone? But that's not the only way they try to brighten up the days, grey or not; music is another and there's a reason why Seattle was the birthplace of grunge in the late '80s/early 90's. Specially around Pike Place Market, there are a number of street musicians showcasing their talents. The good ones will catch your ears with the power of their voice or instrument alone; others less gifted will draw attention by playing guitar while hula-hooping and balancing a second guitar on their head. As the saying goes, if you can't dazzle with brilliance, baffle with bullshit.

Some say that the best of Seattle is coffee (and probably the reason they drink so much of it is to get a jolt in that grey weather) but I'll argue that the best of Seattle is the wild country around it, so lush because it rains constantly. Within a 3-hour drive, you can reach mountains, volcanoes, waterfalls, even a rain forest. I chose Mount Rainier National Park for a daytrip and confess that I was a bit wary as high mountains are finicky creatures that make their own weather and cloak themselves in clouds at will. I was very lucky, though; Mt. Rainier graced me with full view of its 14,411 feet (4,390m) and so did Seattle, with 4 sunny days out of 5. Unfortunately, five days were not enough to explore all I wanted in Seattle and surroundings. One place I regret missing is the Olympic Peninsula, where its Hoh Valley is said to contain the densest, wettest, greenest and most surreal temperate rain forest in the world with unimaginable shades of green. True? I may have to find out someday.

But the area is not just about flora; the fauna is also noteworthy, with orcas the most iconic in the Pacific Northwest. They are the best known and most studied orca population in the world, divided into three distinct groups: residents who live in the inland waters of Washington / British Columbia, and have been designated endangered; transients who move along the coast from Southeast Alaska all the way to Southern California; and offshore orcas who live in waters well beyond the coast. The largest of the dolphins and highly trainable, orcas were relentlessly kidnapped in the Pacific during the 1960s and early 1970s for aquariums and marine parks, with more than 1/3 of the resident population getting captured. Orcas in captivity have a much shorter lifespan (usually less than 25 years versus up to 90 in the wild), and even the largest tank in the world is less than 0.0001% the size of the smallest range of wild orcas. To learn more about orcas in captivity and how detrimental it is to them, watch the documentary Blackfish and next time you feel the urge to go to a marine park or anywhere animals are used for "entertainment", think of how your life would be if you had to spend it in a tiny enclosure.