Tacoma, Washington

7-28-2015
Tacoma, Washington

This has been such an eventful day, and full of such diversity in geography, that it’s difficult to recap everything.  I woke up this morning feeling rejuvenated, courtesy of my time spent in Wallowa County.  It was cold there, though.  It got down to around 36 degrees last night.  I’m hoping that’s the last time I see that temperature during this trip, and that cold temperatures don’t become the norm during the Canada leg of my journey.

Being as rural as it is, getting out of Wallowa County and up to Washington was a fairly difficult endeavor.  Most of the morning was spent zigzagging my way through lesser traveled highways and county roads.  Some of the roads were paved.  Most weren’t.  I only came close to hitting a deer once.  In typical deer fashion, all the thing had to do was jump off the stupid road from the lane it was in, which was the opposite of the lane I was in, but no, it decided to double back right in front of my vehicle almost causing an accident and its own premature death.  I’m pretty sure deer logic runs against the grain of Darwinism.

After a lot of cursing and me turning my car around going up and down the wrong county roads, I finally found Highway 12, which carried me through White Pass and connected me to Highway 123 through Mt. Rainier National Park.  From White Pass on, the trip was beautiful.  The weather up here in Washington is not cold or rainy at all, but in the 80’s and as sunny as California.  The sides of the roads were flush with purple mountain lupines, red indian paintbrush, and wild clover.  Oh, and there was this thing called Mt. Rainier which was visible for most of the ride.  I guess that was kind of all right.

And by “all right,” I mean “one of the most perfect things nature has ever created.”

Finally, I came down from the mountains and dropped into the Seattle/Tacoma area.  Somehow, I’ve gone my entire life without seeing this area.  I don’t know how that happened, because now having seen it, I think I’m in love with this place.  The area is exactly what I picture in my head when I picture a perfect urban setting.  Well…maybe not the traffic, which is just about as bad as the Bay, or the insane cost of living, which again rivals the Bay, or that people somehow think Tacoma is a small town even though its urban footprint probably hovers somewhere near half a million people; but something in the air and the way that, even though its a huge metropolitan area, everything here still feels clean and connected with nature makes me happy.  In some not so farfetched alternate universe, I could see myself living here.

I’m staying at my friend Patrick’s cousin’s condo in Tacoma.  It’s on the waterfront, extremely well-kept, and I’m scared to ask how much its worth.  Somehow I keep ending up at these extremely posh locales during my trip.  It makes me feel like I have friends who love me in the world and don’t want to see me get eaten by a grizzly bear.

Speaking of grizzly bears, this is going to be my last blog entry for about a week.  I head into the wild tomorrow, starting with Glacier NP, British Columbia.  I probably won’t have internet service until I (hopefully) return to civilization in Calgary, Alberta.  If more than a week goes by and there’s no sign of me on this blog whatsoever, then I guess my mom was right and I got eaten by a bear.  Otherwise, I’m excited to finally get to the meat of this journey and to see Canada.

Oh, I don’t have any more pictures for this entry (although the Mt. Rainier one alone should be enough, geesh!).  The weather here was so gorgeous that after dinner with Patrick’s cousin, I grabbed my running shoes and went for a long run rather than take pictures of the area.  When I got back, I was able to snap a photo or two (one of which I made my cover shot), but light was disappearing leaving me with no choice but to call it a night.  And call it a night I shall.

Cheers,

Rob