It is a good thing to sometimes remind oneself what is only 30-minutes-and-seven-dollars-and-change away from downtown Seattle: today I walked onto a ferry bound for Bainbridge Island. For those not in the know, Bainbridge Island sits off of the Olympic Peninsula west of Seattle where it is home to those lucky few who find themselves able to afford the greatly gentrified farmland of grass fed cattle and beyond-organically raised produce nestled between the pungent sea smell of the Puget Sound and etched into purple hammered skies of sunsets that is the Olympic mountains.
But not all is well in this Pacific NorthWest version of a French becolic scene; danger lurks just below the surface. A danger more Oregon and less French resides here. There is a very real and very likely chance you will die in Bainbridge Island. This death awaits anyone foolish enough to venture onto the typhoid-fever-cholera-measles-snakebite-dysentery ridden trail that is the Bainbridge Island shoreline trail, fully marked off with a sign that includes a rather misleading and jiffy pair of hardy backpackers who are blissfully unawares that their 50-lbs of REI-bought and professionally certified equipment will not protect them from what surely will soon become their and your death, too. Do not tempt this trek but leave it to those who have Himalayan fortified hearts ready to handle the long and arduous 1.5 miles of treacherous trail full of turn-outs onto nausea inducing vistas of gently rocking moored offshore sailboats and blue herons waiting in deafening croning ambush along weather-grey stained docks and greener than the greenest green green algae lain over little bits of life waiting between tides. Yes, I am sure you agree: you should leave Bainbridge Island and its terrors to experts such as myself. And if on my next foray there know that if I do not return that I love you all and that I died doing what I love most.
See the rest of pictures from Bainbridge Island today.
