1. You get Air Miles at the liquor store. Not that we drink much, but this blew me away.
2. Ginormous fluffy snow flakes falling lazily down - not beads of dry ice blasting your skin off.
3. Rubber boots are ubiquitous. Everyone wears them everywhere. Trust me. Everyone. Everywhere.
4. The ocean is just over that there hill. If it's not over that one, then it's just right over there. Which leads me to my next point:
5. This place has the freshest, most delicious fish I've ever had in my life.
6. People work here - the butcher butchers, the baker bakes, the farmer farms, the seamstress sews and the carpenter carpents (what?) My point is this - people work hard here. And it's quite likely that they are doing the same job that their father or mothers and grandparents did before them.
7. Place names are family names, and those families are still around.
8. Perhaps this is owing to the conspicuous lack of 20's males, but there isn't a lot of monster-truck-drivin', truck-nut totin', loud diesel blowin' DB angst. That might change when people come back from the oil patch (to which they have disappeared). But, in the meantime it appears to be blissfully DB-free.
9. I have never seen so many VW TDI Wagons in one location... outside of Issaquah, that is. And most of them happen to be silver, come to think of it. There are a LOT of VWs here in general. I wonder why that is....
10. It doesn't take a lot of effort to eat locally - there are a plethora of markets, produce stands and farms where fruits/vegetables are available all year around. It is not hard to find local, humanely treated meat, dairy and poultry. Heck, if you want to make your own butter and cheese just stop someone on the street - they'll tell ya. Ok, maybe not that easy, but you're getting the point. Pretty much anything your little heart could ever want can be produced, grown, procured, bought, pilfered or otherwise obtained from Valley sources. Lumber? Check. Honey? Checkerooni. Sweet potatoes? Checktastic. Farm fresh eggs? Checkerelli. Michelin all-season light-duty truck tires? Checkopolis. Apple-fed, free range, maple-smoked ham hocks? Checkerama-ding-dong. Monkies wearing double-breasted shearling coats at Swedish furniture stores? Not so much...
List to be continued.
I can't wait until summer...
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