Being the Continuing Adventures of a Woman and her Trusty Kayak in New York Harbor, the Hudson River, and Beyond.
(with occasional political rants just to keep things lively!)
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
East Coast Design Flaw
Sunset, gorgeous, one: check.
Beach, sandy, one: check. Sea, deep blue, one: check.
Yep. The pieces are all there, but they went and put the sunset on the wrong side of the water!
Well...ok, I will grant you that it does improve in the winter months. But like a timid swimmer, the Coney Island sunset never wants to venture too far from shore.
I actually ended one of my novels with the main characters literally sailing off into the sunset (from the same town, but with a different renaming, that Sue Grafton uses).
The problem with the west coast is that while sunsets work well, it's not particularly well designed for sunrises -- although Southern California does get some of those south-facing stretches.
Not that I worry too much about sunrises, since I'm not a morning person.
I'm not such a morning person myself. I'm more about the sunsets. I admire the sunrise on the rare occasion when I'm up for it, but that's a rarity.
Now of course, if a person wanted it all, O'ahu's got it wired. You go for your sunrise paddle in Kailua in the morning, and then you go to a beach bar in Waikiki for the sunset, and there you have it!
I think I first really noticed the East Coast summer sunset issue on a date with TQ, back when he was still in CT. One evening, we'd decided to go for a walk on Calf Pasture Beach. It was another beautiful evening, and there was another great sunset, and it would've been just off the scale romantic-scenery-wise if the sunset had just been over the water instead of over the parking lot. I pointed that out & he cracked up.
6 comments:
You know, of course, what the solution is.
Here, we've set things up rather nicely so that you can sail off into the sunset.
Mind the ugly bridge on your way out, though.
Ummm. Doesn't the beach at Coney Island face south? So it should get fabulous sunsets in the winter.
And there are plenty of west facing coasts on the east coast, thanks to all of those barrier islands and major bays like Chesapeake and Narragansett.
Well...ok, I will grant you that it does improve in the winter months. But like a timid swimmer, the Coney Island sunset never wants to venture too far from shore.
gosh! you're right! i'm usually too inebriated by sunset to notice!
I actually ended one of my novels with the main characters literally sailing off into the sunset (from the same town, but with a different renaming, that Sue Grafton uses).
The problem with the west coast is that while sunsets work well, it's not particularly well designed for sunrises -- although Southern California does get some of those south-facing stretches.
Not that I worry too much about sunrises, since I'm not a morning person.
I'm not such a morning person myself. I'm more about the sunsets. I admire the sunrise on the rare occasion when I'm up for it, but that's a rarity.
Now of course, if a person wanted it all, O'ahu's got it wired. You go for your sunrise paddle in Kailua in the morning, and then you go to a beach bar in Waikiki for the sunset, and there you have it!
I think I first really noticed the East Coast summer sunset issue on a date with TQ, back when he was still in CT. One evening, we'd decided to go for a walk on Calf Pasture Beach. It was another beautiful evening, and there was another great sunset, and it would've been just off the scale romantic-scenery-wise if the sunset had just been over the water instead of over the parking lot. I pointed that out & he cracked up.
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