All of it Sounds good.

Exploration is one of my core functions. It resides in the bottom of my being. There is nothing like a good road trip. Especially when it's included in a part of your work.

Driving north has always been a thrilling experience for me. I rarely make it past Longview in Cowlitz County, so any opportunity I can get to go north, I do.

This trip took me to a training in the tiny town of DuPont, Washington, and my first acquaintance with the Puget Sound. The Sound. What a place.

First starting out I didn't quite realize how... Oceany it is.

Going north in Western Washington is strange. You're not in a valley, like in the Willamette Valley in Western Oregon. The landscape flattens out into rolling hills. The Cascades are still on one side of you, but eventually, there are no Coastal Mountains, they simply... disappear.

What you're left with is the giants of the Cascades looming in the distance, their snowy peaks popping out in the least expected places.

The little chains in the Cascades also are prominent, extending their small ridges out onto the plain like small tree covered fingers. You and Interstate 5 dart up and around these small hills on your way north, and wrap around them like a strand of ribbon or a piece of floss.

The tidewater hits you with forests greener than the thickets around the waterfalls in the Gorge. Olympia and the capitol sit at the mouth of the South Sound. (I absolutely love that alliteration). The campus is greener than green, and always misty, a sight to see. But that was a past trip. This time I went farther north.

The training was in DuPont, Washington, self-claimed "Golf Central of the Northwest" and Nick-appointed "most planned and newest town I've ever seen in my life". The town was around since the 1950's (still young in my mind!) but the neighborhood, and "downtown" part I stayed in was planned and built in 2002. There was a long haul bus terminal (for commuters to Tacoma and Seattle), everything was pedestrian planned (stores faced the front, parking lots in back, sidewalks took precedence), and military reigned supreme. (More on that in a future blog post perhaps?)

As I left the conference this morning, instead of going immediately back to Vancouver, I decided to explore farther north into Tacoma. I mean, I was going to get back at like 5 PM on a Friday, so why not? You can't see the Sound too well from DuPont, so I decided first to travel up to another small Sound town* named Steilacoom. Driving up I was a approached with a view very similar to this:

I didn't even mind the gray clouds.** I was elated when I saw that unique ocean like thing from the top of the hill I was driving down.

This view from the town was beautiful, and then I saw it in the distance: The Tacoma Narrows Bridge. I needed to see that.

You see it? Waaaayyy off there in the distance?

Off I went, to see the spot where famous Galloping Gertie was tossed in the wind and collapsed in a terrible structure failure during a windstorm in November of 1940. Here's a picture to refresh your memory:

Picture and previous caption from here.

So I went! I actually didn't cross it though. It costs a five dollar toll, and I'm not paying that one way just to cross a damn bridge. I did, however, go to a park that is adjacent, and it was there I did something that I haven't done in a while. I went for a hike. (Or a stroll, whichever you prefer.)

There is the new bridge, in all it's mile-long span and glory. The place in the foreground is the local boat club, which was obviously deserted. And surrounded by a chain-link fence that I couldn't find a way through.

So this is the Puget Sound. I never quite got what people meant when they talked about this place.

It's rugged, full of pebbles, forests straight to the water, islands; squishy and soggy. It would have been one hell of a place to settle. It is majestic, urban, outdoors, and surprisingly calm. Due to the hills and the forests, the sound from the nearby city drains out, and all you are left with is the water lapping up against the pebble beaches. One could say I fell in love instantly.

The Sound is unique. I have never been anywhere that is ocean... but not ocean. The towns fished, the forests envelop the land, the tidewater produces a diversity in life rivaled for any ecosystem. Thinking back, it reminds me a lot of the Appalachians really. In the Appalachian mountains, the tops are considered "islands" of diversity due to their high elevations and ecosystems where unique elements from the last ice age were pushed and evolved on their own rights in those high sub-alpine systems. The Sound has islands of water from ocean life. The waters are gentle, with little waves, the water is salty, the life teeming, yet different, from the connection with the Pacific so far away. But creatures can migrate from the Pacific because of this existing connection, which is amazing to think about.

The geography of the land fascinates me. Much like those ridges of the Cascades extending onto the pre-tidewater plane, the fingers of the Sound reach far "inland" to places so far removed from the Pacific Ocean proper. When I first saw it, much like the first time I saw where the Columbia empties into the Pacific, I got goosebumps and chills. This place is amazing and so... grand. The natural world here is amazing. I marvel at the natural and built worlds, and I can't help but be filled with excitement for the places and people that lie ahead.

I'm slowly learning to live my life with a sense of wonder and exploration again. I can pull myself out of this culture and environment I have become stale in. I will find a place where I resonate, where I will grow in good company with others.

I'm excited.

P.S. In Steilacoom I found the spot where the first Methodist Church north of the Columbia River was built. I mean come on. How cool is that?

This edition comes with footnotes!

*As you can tell I'm having fun with this.
**In typical "Nick fashion" the sun came out later