Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Fjords

Fjords. I didn't realize there were fjords in Canada. I had visited Vancouver and Victoria in British Columbia several times as I like it there and feel safe. California and the United States is starting to feel pretty crazy in a lot of places. So I like the orderly pace of Canada with a whole lot less people than the western coast of the States.

This last summer I decided to travel north from Vancouver toward Whistler. I was amazed to find a road traveling through fjords with many islands dotting the Sea and the coast going from rocky almost straight up to about 8000 feet in some places. I was completely amazed by the views and couldn't believe I had missed something this spectacular right next to Vancouver all these years.

This first time I went to Vancouver, Canada I was about 4 years old I frankly I don't remember it. At that time I had been born in Seattle and had spent the first 4 years of my life there. Summer when I was 4 we moved to San Diego, California, a long ways away from Seattle. I have spent most of my life since then various places between San Diego, Los Angeles county, the San Francisco Bay area and Mt. Shasta and a while on the big Island of Hawaii and Maui. So I have spent at least 50 of my 59 years living on the California Coast or in the mountains.

However, the last 5 years my family and I have enjoyed visiting Canada several times because so few people live there relative to the West Coast of the United States and because we feel relatively safe there in this post 9-11 world.

There is a craziness to the United States that I haven't felt since the period between the Cuban Missile Crises where we almost all got nuked, and then the Kennedy Assassination all the way through to Nixon's impeachment. Those were really insane times like the ones since 9-11.
I personally believe that Global warming and the Terrorist Wars have caused the fabric of society worldwide to become unglued. It is as if we are all experiencing a greater or lessor form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and no one seems to be balanced or thinking quite right anymore. Having lived 59 years so far I have seen a whole lot of different kinds of craziness on earth. However, I haven't worried as much about any of it as I do about the present kind of craziness I see. The present kind of craziness reminds me most of lemmings jumping off a cliff together in some sort of group suicide or something. I have a sense of foreboding of Billions of people dying soon. I don't think it will come in a way anyone expects. Likely, it won't come through war but through some kind of pandemic brought about by drought and pestilence. Drought is becoming more and more common all over the world. Both Drought and floods seem to be everywhere. The relative weather balance that we knew in the 20th century seems to be gone most places. However, I think there will still be 1 or 2 billion people alive by the end of this century. That is my best guess.

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