Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Two sisters, side by side in matching red dresses, pause in front of the Washington state pillar at the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.
My sister came to Washington, D.C., and apparently decided to take the good weather home with her. I'm only half joking. When she arrived, the weather was beautiful. Warm, sunny and just about perfect for wandering around the city pretending you have your life together while taking approximately 700 pictures of buildings you have already seen 12 times. Then my sister left. And suddenly, D.C. decided it was time to become Seattle.
For those of you reading this from the dry Eastern Washington desert, let me explain what happened next: We got hit with a rare Nor'easter. A Nor'easter is essentially the East Coast's way of saying, "Oh, you thought you were having a nice week?" It's a powerful storm that forms along the East Coast and can bring heavy rain, strong winds and generally miserable weather. Basically, imagine a Pacific Northwest rainstorm, give it an attitude problem, put it on the East Coast and call it a Nor'easter. My sister, meanwhile, got out just in time. I'm beginning to suspect this was intentional.
During her visit, we did what any responsible siblings would do when reunited in one of the most historically significant cities in the country: We went shopping. A lot. We hit the mega shopping centers, including the truly massive Pentagon City Mall. We needed to see how many stores we could walk through before our feet gave up. My sister also took pictures of everything. And I mean everything. Buildings? Picture. Statues? Picture. Food? Picture. Random architectural detail nobody else noticed? Picture. Something that was probably just a parking garage? You guessed it. Picture. I'm pretty sure I now have enough photographic evidence to prove she actually visited Washington, D.C.
We also made our way around the National Mall, where she got to see the monuments and memorials I've become accustomed to seeing during my time here. There is something funny about watching someone experience a place for the first time when you have started to think of it as your temporary neighborhood. The buildings that have become part of my daily scenery were brand new to her. She stopped to take pictures, looked up at everything and generally had the appropriate amount of "Wow, I'm actually here" moments.
We also made a trip to the U.S. Botanic Garden, which was probably the closest thing I've experienced to walking directly into a Washington state greenhouse after someone turned the thermostat to "jungle." The tropical section was hot. It was humid. It was aggressively humid. Coming from Eastern Washington, where the air sometimes feels like it has been personally dehydrated, the humidity was a bit of a shock to the system. We walked out feeling like we had just completed a light workout.
And now, as I write this, my sister is gone, the rain has finally calmed down and the temperatures have dropped. The weather is cooler, gray and wet. Basically, Seattle has apparently relocated to the nation's capital. It's actually been a strange reminder of home. Eastern Washington may be dry, dusty and more likely to make you complain about wildfire smoke than humidity, but the last few days have had that unmistakable Pacific Northwest feeling: gray skies, rain, cooler temperatures and the general sense that you should probably have a jacket with you at all times. The only difference is that instead of looking out the window at wheat fields, I'm looking at the nation's capital.
So thank you, sis, for the shopping trips, monument tour, tropical sauna and approximately 14,000 photographs. Next time, though, maybe leave the sunshine behind. I'm pretty sure you took it with you.
- Olivia Harnack is the Lincoln County Record-Times editor, but currently deployed to Washington, D.C. Email her at editor@odessarecord.com.
Olivia Harnack is the award-winning managing editor/photographer/videographer/columnist at the Lincoln County Record-Times, with offices in both Davenport and Odessa, Wash. She is a University of Idaho graduate and a U.S. Army National Guardsman.
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