Rattlesnake Ledge, the hypocrisy of Taylor Swift, and the fate of the monorail

My least favorite thing about the Midwest is not the grim winter weather, but the flatness. The shocking absence of hills or even mountains. The dearth of elevation. The void in undulation. The inexistence of peaks and the general lack of opportunities to write words in italics. Therefore during my visit to Seattle this weekend I was delighted by the variation in gradients.

There are many advantages to hills – the strengthening of calves resulting from walking up them, the opportunity they provide to do hill sprints, and on a less physical note, the variation in scenery they ensure. Most importantly however, is the view from the top of hill. I miss being able to see into the distance and being up a tall building is just not the same. Views are always best if you have worked to get them and if we were to be afforded panoramic views over Rattlesnake Lake and the Cascade Mountains then we would have to make the 2 mile zig-zag trek up to Rattlesnake Ledge.

Rattlesnake Lake and Ledge, about 30 miles east of Seattle

It wasn’t too challenging and I would love to try running up sometime. The views were nothing short of spectacular and looking out over snowcapped mountains I felt gloriously distant from the horizontal monotony of the Chicago grid system.

There are no views like this in the Midwest

Two interesting thoughts my uncle had

Taylor Swift is a hypocrite. In ‘Mean’, Swift berates a former acquaintance for being mean, repeatedly asking “why you gotta be so mean?” However, young Taylor then sings “all you are is mean and a liar and pathetic and alone in life”. If that is not a mean thing to say I don’t know what is! Sure, being mean to the mean is probably more credible than just being mean, but still, whatever happened to ‘not stooping down to someone else’s level.

Despite my above analysis of 'Mean', I still love the song

Is all transportation doomed to be entertainment? The Seattle monorail once served a real purpose – transporting visitors to the World’s Fair between the Space Needle and downtown. Now it is just a diversion for tourists, who clamor to get the much sought after spot at the front. Likewise, the horse and cart was once the speedy way to get around but now is used to carry sightseers around historic towns. Another example is the steam train’s descent from the peak of engineering to a nostalgic child-friendly joyride. Are modern modes of transport such as the motor car and airplane destined for the same fate? Will the eventual arrival of the automatically driven car lead to people driving our current cars round tracks for fun? Something to think about on a slow day. 

Will today's transport be tomorrow's entertainment?