When the sun comes out in Everett, even if it’s only for a minute, we all decide it’s summer and bust out our shorts and go freeze our asses off at what passes for a beach around here. Or, to mix things up, we take the kids on a hike.

Hiking in Everett quickly turns into any given scene from that horribly depressing movie “The Road.” That is, any scene from the first fifteen minutes before I turned it off. I assume everyone dies? No, don’t tell me.

So there’s nature, sure, but it’s kind of extra dirty in the way only urban nature can be. Our “protected” patch of wetland beauty manages to look more “greasy” than “wet,” and even the dappled shade has a back-alley feel to it. But the farther you hike down the trail, the more you can forget how close you are to paper mills and pawn shops and hookers. Then you get to the the end of the trail, where you might expect to find a picnic area or a scenic overlook…

or the parking lot for an industrial waste disposal center.

Spoiler Alert: The prize is hepatitis.

F’ing Everett.