It has been raining and raining and raining and raining here. For a while there, I was trying to keep track of the days but lost count three days ago, give or take a day. Anyway, it has been a LONG TIME. All this talk of rain has got me thinking about one of my favorite places in the world, Washington State. Back in the day I lived in a tiny town called Steilacoom set on Puget Sound outside of Tacoma. It rained practically every day it seemed, at least for a little while. Only out there it really wasn’t a big deal.
Here is the big reveal about rain in the Pacific Northwest — IT DOESN’T REALLY RAIN! Rather it “mists.” It mists ALOT, a real lot. It mists all the time for days, weeks, and months on end. However, it’s like waving off a fly. It really doesn’t stop you from doing anything or going anywhere. I don’t recall ever feeling soaked or even wet all the way through. The “rain” so light you don’t even need to carry an umbrella or even wear a raincoat for that matter. In fact, that is considered quite gauche.
It’s doubtful that people out there even own umbrellas — I don’t recall ever seeing any in the four years of living out there. (Of course this may have been exacerbated by the fact that I was in the Army, and we weren’t allowed to carry umbrellas in the first place.) At the very most it was non-impact rain. It was definitely overcast, though, and so very dark all winter long.
Ah, the glorious summers made up for it all when it got light at about 5:30 am and then only got dark around 10:30 pm. You could pack a whole lot of living into the summer months, and everybody did. Did I mention no humidity either? Rumor has it that Washington State-ers like for everyone to think it rains all the time so they won’t all move there. Well, it helps their cause that some of the most lush and beautiful rain forests in the world are in Washington. (Psst! It mists in there all the time, too!)
Newsflash! There has been a recent development that has terminated my whinging (Irish for complaining) about the nonstop rain. The buckets and buckets of rain have just turned to SNOW! Now that is something I never saw once while in western Washington. (Albeit there was tons of it when you went east to Mount Rainer and the Cascade Mountains not too far away.) I guess Sam wearing his pajama bottoms on inside out really worked! Gosh, we hadn’t gotten around to flushing ice cubes down the toilet when big flakes started falling.
Off get out the snow pants! Now where did I put them last spring?
LibbY