This past weekend we flew south to visit Olympia, Washington. I've accepted a job there, starting in May or June (still need to nail down the start date). I'm *not* done with my degree yet, so this will be a big challenge to get up and running with a new job, in a new city, while still making progress towards my PhD. But, I will find a way, and it will take a bit longer to finish because of the job.
This is the view from the hill where the WA state capital building sits. The water is Budd Bay, an arm of Puget sound, the land to the right is downtown Olympia. To the left is west Olympia, which has residential and shopping neighborhoods (like REI, and a big mall).
We were supposed to fly down on Thursday evening, we Juneau was having an epic windstorm that made flying impossible (70-90 mph winds at the airport/downtown and up to 114 mph clocked just north of town on the water). Friday morning the winds were still terrible, but by the time our 2 pm flight was ready, the winds were down to reasonable (but still windy) levels and we were able to leave. We would have been so sad to miss the weekend trip!
One of the marinas downtown Olympia:
We loved, loved, loved the city of Olympia. It's a good size - not too big, not too small. It's close to Seattle but without the high housing costs and crazy traffic. It's on the Puget Sound, and only about 2 hours or less to the beach (the 'outer coast'), and close to Mt. Rainier and the mountains of the Olympic peninsula. We spent a lot of time driving around neighborhoods to see which areas we liked, and also a lot of time walking around the downtown area.
We also drove farther afield from Olympia and went to Nisqually national wildlife refuge (above), where we went for a walk and saw frogs, lots of birds, and on our way out, a coyote!
There were so many parks and green spaces around Olympia. I think we'll be really happy there. The picture above is a good size park just 2-3 miles from downtown!
Finally, back to Juneau on Friday. In our absence, the winds brought some really beautiful, fluffy snow, and the sun peaked out today for a bit.
No comments:
Post a Comment