Finding something again

Guana River

My trip to Florida, for the second time, was pretty predictable.  5 days on the burning beach, swimming in shark infested waters, getting in tune to the circadian rhythm of quiet mornings, escalating heat of the day culminating in the afternoon thunderstorm clearing out the days calendar of events, the slumber of listening to a fading rumble of thunder, and the second fine day after the storm.  Dinners at the strip mall or the club.  Evenings on the web catching up to the days misfortunes.  The one single thing we did that surprised me was shortly after one of the days thunderstorms forced an end to the beach, Sallie and I headed down the highway to a place we had been to the year before, a place I had forced as a way to see nature and to see maybe what Florida is supposed to look like without makeup.  Without anything actually.  Just frogs, water, grass, a fading rainstorm.

What are we doing here

Yes, this is the proverbial 3 post blog about nothing that I don't expect anybody to read.  What I am after here is to practice some writing (and typing) and getting some ideas on paper.  We all have ideas, some better than others, and its my aim to capture the better ones.  The title "Side Street Chronicles" was born out of the idea, the belief, that side streets are better than the main ones.  Why? The main ones are popular for a reason, I know, but "popular" why?  What makes something popular better than not?  I believe the best things experienced are those you are least expecting, ones that surprise you with their novelty.

My last post was inspired by a trip to a place I had never been (Boston) in a part of the country that only existed in my imagination.  I had been to NY, Philadelphia, DC, but never New England.  What I found surprised me and reminded me a lot of my home town Seattle, 100 years in the future, if the future was now and the country was discovered from left to right instead of right to left.  I came home living in a lager universe than when I left.

I recently traveled back to Florida for my second trip this June.  The previous June I stepped foot in a mythical land for the first time and experienced the hot Florida summer as someone who was not getting tired of it, rather, as someone just getting to know it, and when I returned a year later  I felt as if I were going through the motions and the magic was gone.  When you revisit that place that was once mythical and now predictable, you are ingrained to it.  I did see some new things though and that will be the focus of my next post.

Visited Boston for the first time. Some Photos:

http://ragsdalephoto.smugmug.com/2015/Bos-faves/

Some thoughts about Boston, as a city:
Comparing to Seattle, not that different in size in the metros, feels similar in scale.  The difference though, is in density.  Where Seattle has a few knots of density (U-district, Cap Hill, West Sea) BOS is much more profound in its density and the associated knots of traffic and people wanting/needing to get around.  I imagine SEA will be like BOS in a few decades but will never match it in terms of history and importance.  Comparing to NYC, I think BOS is my favorite although it's fresh in my conscious.  Those are 2 great cities (along with DC and Philly, so don't yell at me) that can be found in the US that are unlike anything else in the US.  SF really is the closest thing on the west coast to the type of metro you encounter on the eastern "seaboard".  SEA is trying really hard to join the density club.

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First Post

First post. Lets get this out of the way right now so we can start talking about things that matter to me.