Driving to work Monday morning, I knew summer was upon us. It was cloudy and the windshield wipers swept away the drizzle that lasted to Coupeville, but at least the Fourth of July was over with. Even if the weather people hadn’t been predicting hot weather for this week, we knew this was the last drizzle we would see for a while. Because summer unofficially begins July 5 in these parts.

Watching the Weather Channel over the weekend, we didn’t envy those parts of the country already enjoying summer. With temperatures at 90 to 100 and humidity to match, the rest of the U.S.A. was sweltering. How can this be a positive thing? It’s much better to stay cool and watch a fireworks show that lights up the clouded sky while sitting bundled up in a lawn chair and sipping a warm beverage. July 4 in the Northwest in 2010 was as it should be, no sweat and no threat of wildfire. Whidbey Islanders spent all night shooting off incendiary devices that landed in trees and weeds, but no major fires occurred. Our Independence Day celebrations are usually safe and sane because the trees and grass are as moist as kitchen sponges. They’re where sparks go to die.

If it’s as hot Wednesday as predicted, we’ll soon be looking back fondly at the Fourth of July when it was still cool. When the sun comes out the first thing Northwesterners do is buy overpriced sunscreen to protect themselves from it, and they dig out their tinted glasses so they never have to look directly at the sun. We’re a region of vampires, afraid that exposing ourselves directly to the sun’s rays will have disastrous consequence. No wonder the Twilight series was set in Forks. If there are vampires, they could find no better place to live than the Pacific Northwest. Most mornings you don’t even have to jump into your coffin because the sun is safely shielded by layers of clouds.

People make fun of our clouds and rainfall, and transplants from elsewhere are embarrassed by it, but we should capitalize on it. Come to Seattle where the sun don’t shine, visit Whidbey Island with its cloud-covered skies, enjoy seeing the sights without sweat pouring off your brow, without worrying about sunstroke, without fighting off sunburn by slathering on another layer of greasy suncreen. Enjoy seeing nature as it is, without dark lenses to turn everything green or gray. An advertising campaign based on such principles would attract thousands of heat-seared residents of the rest of the U.S.A. looking for a place to cool down.

Come to the Northwest, we’re cool. Give us your huddled masses yearning to breathe crisp air; the overheated refuse from your burning shore. From October through July 4, we guarantee you won’t find yourself burning up under the relentless sun that fries most of the country and forces people into their air-conditioned cars, offices and homes.

Unfortunately, we can’t guarantee cloudy skies the last three weeks of July and all of August and September. It could get hot and ruin your vacation. You could be sweating in Seattle, wondering why you left Chicago, New York or Atlanta for this. But even then, there’s hope that a cold front will come down from Alaska unexpectedly, bringing moisture to the Northwest, parched by a few days of relentless sun. At least, that’s what us vampires always hope for when the weather turns hot.