Life in the Pacific Northwest (As Seen by a Girl from Cow Country)

On March 8th, 2015, I stepped onto a plane and changed my life.

Fresh out of college, I was living in Ann Arbor, Michigan, surviving black ice, white outs, subzero temperatures, and the occasional snowstorm in June.  With temperatures recently a negative thirty-seven degrees with windchill, the gray and rain of Seattle seemed a cheerful respite.

The economy was hopping here, there were plenty of coffee shops (always a plus for recent graduates), and the quirky, introverted vibe of the city appealed to me, someone from a rural farming community that had always felt more metropolitan, creative, and different than the other farmers' kids.

Well, here we are almost two years later in the beautiful Pacific Northwest.

People talk a lot about the different between the West Coast or East Coast and more rural America.  I am from a small town of less than two thousand people; all of my relatives still live there.  Now, I live in the suburbs of a giant West Coast city, but my roots remain firmly in Michigan.

This blog is about a Midwesterner's view of the West Coast.  It's part-travelogue for Washington, Oregon, British Columbia, and the surrounding states.  It's also partly about Michigan and the Midwest.

At the center of it all is a more personal story about the choices we make, the people we leave behind (but never forget), and the new homes we create for ourselves when we leave our old worlds to the pages of memory.

And yes, it's about an introvert navigating the corporate and social worlds of a chaotic city known for its infamous "Seattle Freeze."

Welcome to "Introvert Escapes the Mitten."