The uninitiated wonder how anyone could fall in love with Washington... Rains all the time, high suicide rates, traffic problems, lack of culture outside of Seattle, etc. They don't get it. Washington does have a lot to offer culturally and socially, but that's not it. It's this:

After it rains all day, in the evening while the sun is sinking into the Pacific, you understand why Seattle is the Emerald City, something out of a fairy tale. I don't know why, but the effect is enhanced when you're driving down the freeway. The sky turns all these shades of grey and periwinkle and mauve and the condensation reflects the dying light and it's silver and the slick pavement echoes that, so you're driving down this silver road, silver above you. And the rain makes the trees on both sides of the freeway an amazing green color, the underbellies of leaves and needles catch the silver and refract it. And you watch the abandoned hubcaps and mufflers and cigarette butts fly past and still it looks so clean. Pure but not sterile. It's a sky that makes you stay up all night laughing, makes you remember the things you are that no one had to tell you to be. You can't render it with a photograph; you have to be there. People don't understand.

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