Ellensburg is pretty much the epitome of the small town experience. We arrived just in time to attend the annual fair and rodeo, and experience the Labor Day parade.Everyone here is really friendly and will tell you anything about the town you want to know. It seems that a quarter of the people have been here forever, another quarter are from somewhere else and came here for a job, and the other half will be students.
We've heard that the whole town changes once school starts (more traffic, it's louder, etc.), but no one has anything bad to say about it except for the wind and the cold weather.
Crime here is almost funny. Today in the paper the crimes listed were a guy who drove away from a drive-thru without paying and a kid who let the air out of his dad's tires because of some argument. Our BBQ has been sitting on our back porch facing the street since we arrived, and so far it's still there (knock on wood). This morning the Pastor told us that the only reason to lock your car door in Ellensburg is to avoid finding it filled with free squash and corn from your neighbors.
Services here are limited, but I see it as a removal of temptation to spend. Yakima is about 30 minutes south and has anything we can't find here (Costco, Wal-Mart, Target). We do have a huge Fred Meyer and a Bi-Mart (Northwest-based warehouse-style Wal-Mart) which we have yet to visit.
Groceries are expensive compared to what we're used to. Plenty of supermarkets to choose from, including Fred Meyer's market, Albertsons, Safeway and Super 1 Foods. The checkers are friendly too -- an older man at Super 1 (not even our checker) had to tell us about his grandkids and the barbershop quartet (what else?) that he sings in.
Still, we're going to do our best to support the local mom & pop shops. It's just a matter of learning what's here.
3 comments:
Thanks for sharing about your new city. We had some similar experiences in small town Virginia where we lived this summer. May you be blessed with many surprises in your new life and home...
Dorina for the fam
I LOVE the sound of that.
I was born and raised in Ellensburg until I was 14 when we moved to another town so my mom could find a job after graduating from the university. It's been 16 years since then, I'm in a bigger city that to me could never compare to Ellensburg. I've been back a few times over the years but it was hard not to see everything that's changed. It makes me happier than you could know to hear that overall Ellensburg is still as I remembered it. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Post a Comment