A June Day

Why do I live in the Pacific Northwest? Like everyone who likes where they live, it's a multi-faceted answer, and it's about establishing a life. After going on 20 years here, it's safe to say I like it enough to stay. When I was working I had applied for jobs elsewhere, including Maine and most of the western states, except Arizona where I worked from 1982 to 1987 and Colorado where I went to high school and my first year of college before enlisting in the U.S. Air Force in 1969.

But why here? Well, it's a June day and my "new" office, formerly the den, has a view of The Narrows, the passage from Commencement Bay in Tacoma to the southern Puget Sound. It has the Narrows bridge just about a half mile south where I can see part of it from my window. Mostly, I have a view of Mt. Rainier between a group of Douglas Fir trees whiched I've watched rise amidst the buildings and through numerous winter storms, losing branches to ice, wind and time.

And all that said, while working on my Web site during the day I watched the weather from sunrise to sunset, and it reminded me why I live here. The day started out partly cloudy with a view of The Mountain, but as the morning progressed the low clouds rolled in and the fog rise over the Narrows Strait, first just over the water and rising through the early hours when by about 8:00 am it has encompassed the entire Strait and began rolling up the bluffs along the Narrows to my window.

Through the morning the fog slowly dissipated, the clouds rolled through bringing partly sunny skies, which lasted into the early afternoon and a storm front edged into the Puget Sounds, and by mid-afternoon the sprinkles started followed by periods of intense rain in the late afternoon and early evening. By the late evening the storm went through and the clouds stayed into the next morning. It was a day you had to just say, "Wow!" So what else is there to say? It's why I stay.