This apartment parking lot rather sums up our PNW winter as well as these cars: dark, dull, wet, dreary, and a dose of depressing. Yes, it’s actually been the kind of winter here in the Pacific Northwest that it’s often stereotyped to be but usually isn’t really: perpetually cloudy, rainy, and…dreary. I could count the sunny days since the beginning of December on my hands. Seriously.
And it still hasn’t let up. Ok, California’s gain is our perpetually sogginess. So we all find our coping techniques.
Like drive brightly-colored cars. Self-medicate. Or…
This has been mine. The skiing has been stellar, and the sun came out a lot more up here above the low clouds up high in the Cascades, one hour east of Eugene on Willamette Pass. Which I had to document in a rare selfie (my apologies) to send to Stephanie, who was down in the clouds .
And now I’ve digressed considerably. But back in Eugene (“Skinner’s Mudhole”), scenes like this parking lot sum up why a psychologist friend told me that depression cases are way up this winter; well that and politics. My therapy for both is to head for the hills. I typically leave home a bit after noon, arrive at about 1:30, and buy a 2 hour pass ($14/hr) which actually gets me right through to the 4PM closing time. Plenty of skiing for an old man like me. And at $28, it’s cheaper (and more effective) than talk therapy (or meds), although I can’t say that from experience, having never found the need (yet).
Oh, and theses cars. Pretty typical. What else is there to say?
Can’t say much about the cars in that pic, but as a nearly lifelong S.A.D. sufferer (who gave up on meds years ago…prescribed ones, that is) I’m here to tell you, nothing is more effective than getting outside, no matter the weather.
When I moved from suburban NJ into Manhattan years ago I found that my seasonal crankiness and depression was halved, just based on the fact that I had no choice but to get out and at the very least walk around, as opposed to shuffling to the car and into the office, etc.
Whether or not we feel that we’re “embracing” the darkness, dampness, coldness, etc., just a certain “oneness” with it actually does help. But hell, if you can grab 2 hours of sunshine and powder while you’re experiencing your “oneness”, then all the better.
Two walks a day, minimum. A quick one before breakfast, and a 4-5 miler sometime later. We’ve come home wet quite a few times, but it’s well worth it.
This could be the parking lot for any campus/off-campus student housing from about 2003 onwards!
Amazing, a group of fairly new cars, and not a single silver car. It seems as though anymore that 25-35% of cars on the road are silver, with almost as many being white.
Wonder what the sticker on the Subaru and Saturn is? Looks like the outline of Oregon with numerous Doug Firs. Yup, looks like a typical Willamette Valley scene from a variety of older cars, moss, grey everywhere, and a poorly drained parking lot. Those Jettas cannot be so bad, there are two assumingly running examples right there. Well I much, much rather be in Tualatin than back in Central New York or pretty much anywhere else in the country; I love this place.
I love my “blazing Copper” (Orange) Edge. When I step out of a store and scan the lot, it is ALWAYS easy to find. Best I can tell there is only one other in the area and I haven’t seen it parked yet.
I did try to get into a Butane Blue Chrysler T&C once that I *thought* was mine. Turns out mine was about 3 spaces back with the doors and hatch open ’cause i pushed ALL the buttons trying to get in the wrong one. Only when I walked back to store to buy a new battery for the remote did I see my van on up in the lot. LOL. And I was pissed that the KEY didn’t work in the door lock…Never had that issue with the Edge or the yellow Frontier I had.
This Christmas I tried to help a VERY frustrated older woman get into “her” Cadillac outside a grocery store. Same situation as yours. After trying nearly everything to get the keyfob to unlock the doors, she remembered she hadn’t parked right outside the door to the store. After another “blip” on her keyfob we “found” her car about 100 feet away. Thankfully I FINALLY noticed that when she hit the button the lights on another car light up.
A lady called the police, because a strange man was sitting in HER car in the parking lot. Turned out, my friend (who was waiting on his wife) was in HIS car, hers was sveral cars away! LOL! 🙂
My grandma did that once, back in the sixties. Grey Morris 1100s were everywhere. Swore me to secrecy, in return for which I made her memorize the number of the family car.
I agree…my Green Envy Fiesta is always a little ray of sunshine and also easy to find in a sea of mostly drab cars. The more dreary the day, the brighter the car seems.
The PNW weather has been exceptionally bleak, cold, cloudy, rainy (and snowy) this year. Still, my 20th anniversary from SoCal is also this year, and clean air, lots of green, affordable houses (especially buying 20 years ago and then a second low priced foreclosure in 2010) and less mayhem and congestion makes me shed no tears for making the move.
The trade off is worth it many times over.
If these were new cars, the dark green on the Jetta would probably not be an option. Save for sports and high-performance cars, the only real color usually available is red. Everything else would look the same shot on black & white film – white, silver, grey, pewter, charcoal, black. Occasionally a dark, greyed-out blue. Even beige is getting hard to find.
As a life long east coaster I think the west coast is great. From San Diego to Vancouver this is truly Gods country. Some of the most spectacular nature and scenery in the world and an eclectic mix of people that I have always found to be warm, friendly, kind and nonjudgmental. Have vacationed here often throughout the years, the first time as a wide eyed twenty three year old trekking up Hwy One with a friend in a sixty eight Nova.
California, Oregon and Washington are all a bit different, but share similar values that reflect the decency that defines America.
I live near Tacoma and I love this weather. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to move up here. Having lived in the Mojave for years I found that weather to be far more depressing than the constant overcast and rain.
Love this weather. Wish it were consistently cloudier to cover up the summer days when we are exposed to UV violence. No burning hot steering wheel, shifter knob, seat and seat belt buckle almost all year long. With internal combustion engines, heat is free, A/C isn’t.
People talk of colonizing outerspace. The average person gets miserable being stuck in the house during a cold overcast spell of weather. Who would want to live in the blackness of outerspace in a tiny lifesupport capsule?
I hear you. The “S” in my SADS stands for summer, and hot sunshine. At 64, I’ve had about eight minor skin cancers whittled off. I’m working on a starter cataract, despite wearing sunglasses religiously. Recently I learned that sunshine even helps create the kidney stones that periodically afflict me (the last I’ll remember as Trump’s Inaugural Urological Monument, for when it occurred).
So although Denver boasts of 300 days of sunshine, I’m not applauding.
I believe there probably are biochemical mechanisms that respond positively to increased sunlight. But I wonder how much cultural memory is involved? So much of our cultural preferences stem from the English and other Northern Europeans, cold and starved for light. Sun is a metaphor for happiness and bliss- think of “Here Comes the Sun: and a thousand other similar songs. But the Southwestern Native Americans danced to bring rain, not sun. I wonder if folks other desert cultures always long for that “Bright, bright Sunshiny Day?”
At least it’s always sunny up there! But you’re right, you can’t play outside.
here in the winter wonderland of Ontario people constantly ask me to pull the sunshade on my Grand Cherokees sunroof because the glass is cold. my answer is always NO as if there is five minutes of sunshine out there I want it!
just that bit of light everyday really does make a difference.
I’m helping my daughter shop for a vehicle in Tacoma. We’ve settled on a Forester or a Tiguan, both with jumbo sunroofs.
The bad weather doesn’t stop at Oregon’s state line! Much the same here south of you.
Yep, it’s been a wet one this year up here in Vancouver Canada too. I bought myself a cheerful metallic red Mercury Mystique to lift my spirits. Not working. Sad face.
Looking side by side, the Jetta IV looks like a Toyota Corsa/Tercel with smooth lines.
I lived in Phoenix for years, which has the exact opposite conditions from the PNW: sunny almost every day! Living there, I would cherish every cloudy day as a break from the constant oppressive sunshine constantly beating down on you. I would fantasize what it would be like living some place where it’s always cloudy.
I’ve lived in Houston, TX for 12 years now and we have a wide variety of sky and rain conditions, even though the temp only varies generally from warm to hot to OMG. I find I like it better because all year, you can get cloudy days or sunny days.
You have skiing by the hour! At a low, low $7 per hour? Is it a walk-up, or did they rig a rope tow?
I’ve skiied Aspen and I’ve skiied Vail, and I’ve given up skiing entirely now that a half-price “deal” is $75 a day. We may have the best resorts, and Utah has the best snow, but Oregon surely has the best deals. Tell me more…