the sights

Small town Western Washington, south of Seattle, home to Mount Rainier, Boeing, the Washington Banana Museum and a place called Tacoma which, in a survey that was clearly worth every penny, was recently voted the nineteenth most walkable city in the USA.

There are rivers, lakes and mountains here. You can snowboard, ski, hike, camp, bike, climb and fish. A survey of local wildlife includes deer, moose, cougars and heavy-footed bears. There are woods dense with tall tall trees and tangled ferns and forty-two species of native orchid - fairy slipper, phantom and coralroot. There are places with old-sounding names like Wenatchee, Snoqualmie and Issaquah, their roots buried deep in native land, lush forests and the sound of birds.

Of course, these are all things I've read about on the internet because I don't have a car. Actually, despite a few expensive and demoralising lessons, I can't drive.

In England not driving is almost a mark of distinction and not something that requires frequent justification. It's assumed that you take your environmental responsibilities seriously, or have better things to spend your money on or would rather spend your valuable commuting time bettering your mind by reading Proust and doing cryptic crosswords. At the very least public transport is so cheap and comprehensive, especially viewed against increasingly busy roads and exorbitant petrol prices, that just not bothering to learn looks perfectly reasonable. In America though, especially in this small town where there are miles of road punctuated only by identikit housing complexes and strip malls, not driving reads like a wilful act of negligence and self-sabotage. There is one bus that runs from 5.30am to 8am on weekdays and that's it. All of my complex human needs must be met at the local grocery store, Starbucks and nail salon.

Since I've been reduced to a level of immobility most Americans don't experience after their sixteenth birthday, I've been making discoveries of a small order. I have seen a grown man wearing sweatpants tucked into cowboy boots. I've seen women in stripper heels with acrylic nails sipping cocktails at the local casino, the kind of long-haired women who look like teenagers until they turn around. I have seen a man covered from the curve of his shaved head to the band of his socks in graphic black tattoos. I've seen a raccoon looking shifty at the side of the road, and an enormous green dragonfly whip past my face on it's way through the trees. I have seen a man in a wheelchair wearing an oxygen tank happily smoke a cigarette. And I have seen a stocky little dashund go whizzing by in the basket of a bike wearing a tiny waistcoat and a tiny fedora, his ears flapping in the breeze. And that, my friends, is something I would trade all the fresh mountain air in the world to see.