I live in a small city, pop 13k or so, in the eastern 2/3 of Washington, separated from the western side by the Cascade Mountains, a more conservative culture, and a dryer climate. I moved here from Seattle 30 years ago, and a year later married my long-time best girl. She was not at all sure she wanted to be so far from the city and its shopping, but we both have come to prefer the small-town atmosphere. Here you encounter the same people in different contexts, and socially you cannot afford to be too offensive, so we practice courtesy and tolerance together. There is a culture-gap between the college and the ranching/farming communities, but this is a great place to settle down and join in.
Photographic opportunities are different than in a large city, and as with entertainment, one needs to be more self-reliant.
I grew up about 10 miles from Laurence (in message #8), near Bremerton across Puget Sound from Seattle. Our house was on the waterfront, and the extensive protected bays and channels of Puget Sound made for a very rich boating experience that I miss over here in the interior. As a teen, I was charmed by the idea that I could get in my home-made boat and theoretically have access to the Pacific Ocean, maybe make it to Alaska...
I'll attach a couple of shots: The first along the river on a winter day, the second on a misty spring morning as the audiologist turns the corner to her office in the next block. I was just snapping the ugly green place behind and shot her quickly as she appeared and I recognized her. She is screaming "Oh, you finally got me!" as she has resisted being shot before. 😀 But it's pleasantly typical of this community that we recognize many other residents and see them in different places and contexts.
