Let us take a look at last month's weather to see where we would rather be.

July in New York City, a.k.a. "the Big Apple" (Washington state leads the nation in apple production, and has done so since the 1920s):

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  • weather.com

My goodness: 102°. That is very warm. July in New York City was rife with temperatures such as 96°, 92°, 95°, 98°. And recall that, famously, it's not the heat—it's the humidity.

This July in Seattle, a.k.a. the Jet City (big ups, Boeing!): an average temperature of a pleasant 75°. Precipitation: 0.34 inch (why, that's less rain than in New York City! Imagine that!). Humidity: Nil.

One does not even break a sweat in July in Seattle when climbing one of our fair city's picturesque hills* to take in the view of the two even more picturesque mountain ranges—the Olympics to the West and the Cascades to the East**—and the even-more-picturesque-than-that-if-such-a-thing-is-possible bodies of water***.

Truly, summertime in Seattle is superior to anytime anywhere else.

*New York City has no hills, meaning your calves are lumpen where ours are shapely.
**Let those names roll off your tongue for a moment: Olympics. Cascades. Cooling, no?
***Namely, icy Puget Sound, full of Dungeness crabs and pearl-making oysters, gateway to the mighty (and cold) Pacific; Lake Union, glittering with sailboats; and gigantic, gorgeous Lake Washington, sharer of our great state's namesake and ready to be plunged into should we feel like a refreshing swim.