State one. The beginning of a thing I’ve been planning for four months and talking about for longer than that.
The elevator pitch still needs work. I know that. I’ll get it down eventually. But the short version is this: I’m about to turn 60, and my plan is to visit all 50 states during the year I’m 60. One state down, 49 to go. Washington first, because it felt right to start somewhere that would make me want to keep going, and Gig Harbor is exactly that kind of place.
I got in the night before, stressed about the wrong things immediately — camera placement, cinematography, how to open the morning, how to launch a project that has lived only in my head and on a website for four months. By the time I woke up I’d managed to talk myself down from all of it. The whole reason for this year is to enjoy it and share it in my own way. Some episodes will be good. Some will be less good. That’s how it goes when you’re making something real.
Carnada breakfast tacos at a little place next to the Waterfront Inn. A good breakfast is not a small thing when you’re starting a year like this.
Gig Harbor
Gig Harbor sits on a protected inlet off Puget Sound, the kind of town that makes you feel slightly irresponsible for not having come here sooner. The harbor is lined with boats and backed by the kind of Pacific Northwest architecture that seems to grow out of the landscape rather than being placed on top of it. I wandered down to a state park near the water at low tide — I should have written the name down, and didn’t, a pattern I suspect will repeat — and found myself completely alone except for a family around the corner and the snow-capped mountains across the sound.
I was on the phone with Frank, walking the beach, when I looked up and caught the mountains in the distance. My jaw actually dropped. That’s where I’m heading in a few days — over into the Cascades, into that landscape. Standing here looking at it from across the water made it feel real in a way that a year of planning hadn’t quite managed.
It’s cool and crisp and the light on the water is doing something that no camera angle I’ve set up is going to fully capture. That’s fine. I’ve stopped trying to force it.
A Note on the Year
I started an alcohol-free January and it stuck. I’m on the eve of my 60th birthday sitting on the shore of Puget Sound drinking a non-alcoholic beer, feeling clearer and sharper in the mornings than I have in years, and I see no particular reason to change that. Not prescribing it for anyone. Just saying it works for me right now.
I also want to say something that I’ll probably keep coming back to this year: however these videos unfold, however I tell these stories, they’re going to be mine. I’ve been watching other channels and appreciating what they do, but I’m not them and they’re not me. This is going to be my version, imperfect and evolving, recorded from beach walks and state parks and parking lots and hotel patios. Some of it will resonate. Some of it won’t. That’s what an honest year looks like.
This is a great place to start. I have a feeling it’s going to be an amazing year.
