What it's like to Live in Eastern Washington



As some of you may already know, I grew up on Long Island, and have lived in Delaware for the past four years while at school. This summer, I'm living in eastern Washington for an internship (and I also interned here last summer as well). I live in a pretty populated area compared to most towns out here, but it's still over half an hour to the next normal sized town. My one friend here who is a local says she considers big towns "anything with a Costco". There's your first sign at how small these towns are.

Since I'm so not used to living in a town like this, I figured I'd share with you the most notable things I've come across while living in eastern Washington, both good and bad.



1. There's (almost) no trees. When I first moved here, I thought it was a desert. I was quickly corrected. There is just a little too much rain here to be considered a desert. It's a shrub brush. I didn't even know those existed.



2. There's no humidity. On the east coast, when it's 85 degrees out, it feels like it's 100, and you're probably hiding inside for fear of having heat stroke. Here, 105 degrees is just a normal July day. The difference is entirely humidity. It's amazing how almost-pleasant the heat can be when it's dry.



3. SPUDNUTS! I'm not sure if these exist in other towns or only the one that I live in, but spudnuts are the greatest thing that has been introduced to me since I came to this town. They're donuts, but made with potato flour. Now, I love potato bread. Potato bread french toast was one of my favorite things when I was little. Now take that, but turn it into a donut. Or a maple bar. Or a cinnamon roll. All amazing things that are sold at the spudnut shop. Also, almost every single business meeting at my lab has spudnuts. And when the people in the meeting don't finish the spudnuts, they dump them in the intern room. Which is where I am. Which means free spudnuts all the time. Life is glorious.

4. There's WinCo. I had never heard of winco until I came out to Washington, but it is by far the best supermarket I have ever been to. For those of you who haven't been there, imagine Costco, but instead of having to buy everything in bulk, they sell them individually. And there's a "bulk" section where there's tons of seasonings and candy and nuts and cereals in big containers and you just scoop out however much you want and they're sold by weight! I definitely miss this on the east coast.

5. Everyone has Direct TV. On the east coast, everyone uses Verizon Fios or Comcast (ugh). I think it probably has to do with the lack of rain though, because we had Direct TV for a little while as a kid and it went out every time it rained. Here, that's not an issue.

6. More than 5 cars within your line of sight is considered traffic. I'm not kidding. Today we were on a 5 lane road and there were 4 other cars and my friend made a comment about how much traffic there was.



Hopefully this gave you all an insight into my charming little town. It's a great place to live, and I imagine to raise a family, but it's definitely not the permanent place for me. But I will miss the spudnuts.

Side note: My laptop is currently broken so I will be attempting to blog from my phone, please forgive me of the formatting is wonky. I will fix it as soon as I can.

Unknown

My name is Liz and I'm a 22 year old with a B.S. in Wildlife Conservation. I love beer and fashion and exploring the outdoors, and am currently figuring out how to do all of the above on a post-grad budget.

6 comments:

  1. It looks really pretty and serene, but I'm not sure I could survive! I'm such a city girl! But those spudnuts look good!!

    www.jewelswandering.com

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    1. I'm not a city girl but I still need more people than here! Haha I totally understand.

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  2. Thanks for sharing...! I am with Julie, I am very much a city girl and don't think Id survive over there. I live in South Puget Sound, Bremerton. My daughter will be moving over there to Wazzu, so I look forward to getting to know a little more of that part of the state!

    Have a great day!
    Valerie
    Fashion And Travel

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    1. It has definitely taken some getting used to! That's awesome though that your daughter will be out here! I don't know much about the colleges around here, but from the little bit of WSU that is in my town it seems very nice. Make sure to grab some spudnuts while you're in the area!

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  3. Okay I need to try a SPUDNUT now! I live in Canada so it might be hard:) Thanks for sharing this post, I found it very interesting :)

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    1. Well, the Canada border is only about 4 hours away... haha someone else must make them somewhere, I just have to look harder!

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