A tiny tech hub. A mountainous adventure. Shockingly, it never rained nor stormed during my time in the region notorious for drizzle and deluge from the wakes of gray skies. I started in Chinatown Seattle and explored the majority of the international districts before heading east and camping in the famous outdoorsy National Park Yakima by an old Native American Reservation.
There was a surprisingly large backpacker community that often got confused to be a portion of the growing homeless population in the popular cities of Seattle and Portland. We filled the coffee shops, custom donuts shops, and public libraries to take advantage of the shelter, free Wi-Fi, and water. It almost seemed unusual to say, but I wanted to know how the other half lived. We have a huge population of homeless people around the world and I didn't want to wait until I had too much money to not know what to do with to do something to make a difference. So I decided to spend a week in their shoes. Understand the benefits society could offer at arm's length to foster self-growth and motivate a labor force of undervalued, possibly educated but most likely unskilled workers.
The self-destructive, self-perpetuating nature, homelessness, a state in which the social assumption is a lack of escape leads to entrapment in the current position or status. Homelessness and the community view that they simply can't help themselves, leaves millions wandering the street of human’s greatest cities.
In a place where vintage, grunge, and style bleeds from the streets, the chestnut, scarlet and mahogany bricks blend a crowd of urbanites with a group of observers who watch the busy bodies tame the life they desire. Yet for the few, they've found solace with plateau.
I've traveled a lot and while I can't say I've seen it all, I can say that the majority of the country looks like a place not too far from home. So where ever you end up, it'll feel familiar. But that's just my view of America.
Towards the end it started to feel like I was just rushing to get to the next place. The locations I stayed at were all pretty much designed for entrenchment. People just stayed. There was a severe lack of migration like previous generations but a heavy sense of globalization with uniformity. Even attempts of individuality reflected an innate image of collectiveness. Culturally we've begun to stand together but distributed varyingly throughout the planet.
-June 5th, 2018