I feel a sense of being with him as he speaks of the crossing, and includes people from the past and future. Of course the bridge replaced the ferry. What a great community was lost in that process. I yearn for the old way of people journeying together daily to make their crossing, seeing familiar faces.
Seems we keep getting further away from socialization in the US as we create more and more technology and abstract ways of meeting.
When I was a child growing up near Pittsburgh, we had people in our house all day everyday, eating Grandma's homemade bread, donuts, pies, cakes, etc, drinking coffee. It was a beautiful life, full of flowers and friendships and people. Grandma always had room for one more, and food , she always said, multiplied to feed another mouth.
It seems now people think the earth has flattened out again, and maybe don't need the physical observances to connect, but I am certain nothing is further from the truth. Just as the earth was never flat, people need a place that is social, and tolerant, encourages self expression, provides room to expand, and is stimulating, in order to develop themselves and contribute their unique expression to culture.
Crossing Mukilteo Ferry is a far cry from Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, I'm sure. It may, however be my closest experience.
Here are a few verses of Whitman's poem, and a link to finish it off..
FLOOD-TIDE below me! I watch you face to face;
Clouds of the west! sun there half an hour high! I see you also face to face.
Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes! how curious you are to me!
On the ferry-boats, the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, are more curious to me than you suppose;
And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence, are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose. 5
2
The impalpable sustenance of me from all things, at all hours of the day;
The simple, compact, well-join’d scheme—myself disintegrated, every one disintegrated, yet part of the scheme:
The similitudes of the past, and those of the future;
The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings—on the walk in the street, and the passage over the river;
The current rushing so swiftly, and swimming with me far away; 10
The others that are to follow me, the ties between me and them;
The certainty of others—the life, love, sight, hearing of others.
Others will enter the gates of the ferry, and cross from shore to shore;
Others will watch the run of the flood-tide;
Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the heights of Brooklyn to the south and east; 15
Others will see the islands large and small;
Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an hour high;
A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see them,
Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring in of the flood-tide, the falling back to the sea of the ebb-tide.
3
It avails not, neither time or place—distance avails not; 20
I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence;
I project myself—also I return—I am with you, and know how it is.
Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt;
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd;
Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refresh’d; 25
Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood, yet was hurried;
Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships, and the thick-stem’d pipes of steamboats, I look’d.
read the rest here:
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
Washington State has the largest Ferry System in the US....Washington State Ferries Site
We have Ferries to take us to islands like Lummi, Bainbridge, Port Townsend, Victoria BC, Whidbey (the second largest Island in The US) to Orcas and San Juan Islands, and also to Alaska on the inside passage..
We have Ferries to take us to islands like Lummi, Bainbridge, Port Townsend, Victoria BC, Whidbey (the second largest Island in The US) to Orcas and San Juan Islands, and also to Alaska on the inside passage..
'Ebey's Landing from the Top of The Hill Whale Watching is one activity on Whidbey you might like to entertain..
""Orcas are fascinating to me because they are so family oriented like humans. Their bonds and social structure are so strong and there is a real emotional connection between individuals.
"Most people, if they look a cetacean (marine mammals such as whales, porpoises and dolphins) in the eye, come away from the experience looking at the world differently. It is not like a dog peering at you. It is another creature looking at you and trying to figure you out," said Hawks-Johnson.
Her first such encounter came in 1991 near Australia's Great Barrier Reef with a bottlenose dolphin. "I was on a Zodiac and a dolphin popped its head up just one or two feet away and looked right in my eyes for what seemed like 30 seconds. Then it went down. There was inquisitiveness seeking to find out 'who are you?'" she said.
"Being with the whales day after day and watching them interact is so unbelievably amazing. I can't adequately explain the experience in words. Regardless of our research findings, if we want these 78 animals to survive, all of us in the greater Puget Sound area have to look at what we are doing in our daily life that may be affecting the whales. If not, a conservative estimate is that they will be gone in 33 to 121 years.""
Ebey's Landing on Whidbey Island
Mt Baker in background...
MT Baker Geologic and Eruptive History
Mount Baker is an isolated stratovolcano (3,285 meters; 10,778 feet) an ice-clad volcano in the North Cascades of Washington State about 50 kilometers (31 miles) due east of the city of Bellingham. After Mount Rainier, it is the most heavily glaciated of the Cascade volcanoes.
Photo Gallery including Northern Lights, here
MT Baker Geologic and Eruptive History
Mount Baker is an isolated stratovolcano (3,285 meters; 10,778 feet) an ice-clad volcano in the North Cascades of Washington State about 50 kilometers (31 miles) due east of the city of Bellingham. After Mount Rainier, it is the most heavily glaciated of the Cascade volcanoes.
Photo Gallery including Northern Lights, here
Mt Baker Through Wild Flowers At Ebey's Landing
Snack Bar on Ferry
Seating Aboard The Ferry
More Seating, Rarely Used
1 Of 4 Car Decks
(usually full)
More seating, rarely used
Leaving Mukilteo
The Ferry
A Tug pulls Barges
The Ferry from Clinton Passes by...
"Verdant Whidbey Island lies at the extreme north end of Washington's island-strewn Puget Sound, forming the eastern boundary of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. To the east rise the glacier-clad peaks of the North Cascades, to the north and south stretch miles of deep water, islands, and coves. Silhouetted against the southwestern sky, the Olympic Mountains form a dramatic backdrop for the island's rural setting. In the central portion of Whidbey Island is Ebey's Landing National Historical Reserve. Its boundaries encompass broad fertile prairies, high seaside bluffs, rolling woodlands, shallow brackish lakes, and a deep protected cove." More at Things to Do at Whidbey Island