You paint such a vivid picture of Olympia. I used to live in Olympia's soft heart downtown, from summer 2003 to summer 2005, alone, in different places. The kids were grown and gone, and I needed to make a life by myself. At first it was very lonely. I'm retired, young but not all that young, disabled.

For two years I roamed and met people. I turned myself into a distance hiker. I trained in Watershed and Priest Point before I headed to the Olympics. I love those places, wrote a lot of poetry on trail breaks, wrote with some downtown seniors later. Coffee shops, little restaurants, Charlie's blues jam, El Guanaco, B&B. I particularly like the Farmer's Market and am really looking forward to seeing the Emu and Clam men again. I love the pier from Bayview to the Market. At first I loved the place, then, as I met them, the people. I have many friends downtown.

I would have stayed but I fell in love, and we needed a bigger place, for us, for the dog we planned to adopt, someplace near hiking, near Olympia. We wanted downtown but could not meet those conditions.

We chose Centralia because we could buy a itty bitty house here, right at the bottom of a 60 acre natural area with trails. We could adopt a dog and we did. She goes off leash up there. It's different from Priest Point and Watershed. Lots of wildlife and deer trails! I also like to climb and I'm too old to be restricted by rules like "stay on the trails". I have a crappy old car too, the kids wrecked it learning to drive. One took out a row of mailboxes and one drove through the garage door (when it was closed). I'll replace it someday but the dents have sentimental attachment. So its nice to have a place to go on foot, on deer trails, with deer. The deer know me. They come down and eat the apples off my tree and nap in my backyard.

I am gradually meeting people here. Of course I meet the hikers. And the group that supports the natural area. And the humane society people. There is a cool little writing group down here. I find the groups are more active because they have to do it all, not as many group choices. The little college is fun and I took a class there. There's a cool martial arts studio downtown for next winter when the weather is bad. I love to kick! I don't kick people mind you. Well I might if they threatened my dog, but since my dog looks like a wolf and is about my size, that is not likely to happen.

I grew up in Pullman, lived back east in Washington D.C. and Richmond, then in the southwest Virginia mountains, then San Jose CA. I've traveled most states and a few continents and countries. Olympia and Centralia rank as the two best places to live.