Shortcut Through Paradise: Driving the Scenic Route of the Mind By Jenny "Small Truck" Van West Most days, I drive in the city. This means that half the time it is not the pleasurable sort of driving that happens along a deserted road somewhere sunny, chasing gulls down a coastal highway. It is gritty, wet, Seattle driving, where I spend more time worrying about getting driven off Aurora Avenue or busting my clutch out on First Hill, than actually being engaged in the process of getting there. Remedies do exist for the non-driving I've come to accept as the way I spend 9,000 miles of my life each year. There are shortcuts, even scenic routes, in the city. More importantly, there are scenic routes of the mind that can be found behind the wheel, no matter where you drive. These are the roads that make the driving life worth living. My obsession with shortcuts began some time ago when I lived in Port Townsend out near the Olympic Mountains. In love as I was with a man in Seattle, I spent several weekends each month driving the 50 miles to the ferry which would shuttle me and my car over to my beloved. A friend taught me a shortcut between Port Townsend and the Bainbridge Island ferry; the Super Secret Back Way, she called it. It was not only faster, but more scenic. Along the curvy, hilly roads were thick woods, horses, painted fences, cows in fields. And only two stop signs between me and the Agate Passage Bridge. Eventually, I moved to Seattle. The shorter distances I traveled routinely soon became mundane. I was also pushed to find ways to get north or south in a hurry. Not a small feat in a city where water crisscrosses roads like fate, and drawbridges are commonplace. Soon I discovered that one north-south avenue near Fremont that would take me from Tacoma Screw Products all the way to the Fred Meyer store on NW 85th. And no traffic. All the way up that avenue, I passed old wooden houses and gardens instead of the shoddy, plastic malls that litter the main drag. And even though it's a two-lane road, I can take my time: I get there faster anyway. That is a pleasure of driving so often erased in the city. I was hooked. The quest for urban scenic back routes had begun. When my job moved downtown, I slumped. A shorter commute, but I'd be working downtown. Blech, I thought. However, I softened that blow with the 10 minute back route I found...down between the warehouses near the fisherman's terminal, past Salmon Bay Sand & Gravel, under the Ballard Bridge, through an historic neighborhood, over a draw bridge with a neon Rapunzel leaning out of the tower, and straight through. Up the route the bicycles know. Over the hill without stoplights. Past the Hostess factory that smells like fresh baked Ho Ho's. Past the oldest city park in Seattle and into the Denny Regrade, where a hundred some years ago a whole hillside was intentionally washed down to make way for the burgeoning city. Right blinker on, and into my parking lot. There is a weird rush about finding a shortcut that good. These shortcuts don't just get me there faster. They get me there better. Each day 24th Avenue takes me out of Ballard, past the Leif Ericson Hall and the Ballard Eagles Hall where I've spent many fine nights dancing. The cut over from Aurora Avenue to 175th, over a short strip of brick roadway, is a quick 100 yards of Seattle history and thirty seconds off the drive to the Kingston Ferry. And then, of course, there are the automotive dreams to nurture. There is the fully-restored 1953 Chevy pickup parked near 77th & 13th. There's the abandoned Ford flatbed by the Salty Dog near Shilshole Avenue. There's1950 5-window Chevy pickup that weekly hauls trash and gravel (the owner won't sell, but he let me sit in the cab one day). Old trucks, for me, are one of those tickets in: a shortcut to that paradise of the mind. In a city of mostly straight roads, it is the curves that refresh my mind. I take those routes whenever I can. I find tall trees along curvy residential streets of arts & crafts houses. Or I take Interlaken Avenue, nestled into a steep slope of alders and sword fern. I peruse the winding streets on the south side of Queen Anne hill, where many a time I've parked, so that after nightfall I can walk back to my car and see the city ablaze with light. Hills are good for chasing out the blues. Some of Seattle's hills are steeper than San Francisco's. Driving up some badass hill downtown, it's a matter of skill: cresting the hill at the red light so as to avoid that acrid smell of burning clutch. From time to time, I try my luck down the north side of Queen Anne, where the asphalt careens precipitously toward the ship canal. Next time you get out there on your streets, forget for a moment that you're stressed and in a hurry. Take a quick jaunt through that old part of town, or down that curvy street, or the flat one where the sky opens up. Forget about that meeting you were dreading, and take a shortcut past that place or thing or memory that reminds you of who you are, and of that appointment with life that's always here, if you want to take it. Photos by Jenny "Small Truck" Van West