I’m a native of Birmingham, Alabama. I moved to Puyallup, Washington in the summer of 1999 for a short wonderful year. My ex-wife and I were trying to find a place within reasonable distance to her new job and yet still close enough to Seattle. We knew very little about Puyallup before moving.

Compared to towns of similar size in Alabama—well, I thought it’d be a place where I did nothing but rest my head in at night while spending the rest of my time anywhere else. But that was far from the truth. Saturdays were spent at Pioneer Park enjoying the farmers market. Visiting the Puyallup Fair was a blast. The friends we made were great. I even experienced my one and only earthquake one evening there. Unfortunately my ex-wife didn’t care for being so far from Alabama and after her year was up with the job that took her out there she wanted to moved back.

I miss Puyallup an awful lot and hope to take my wife and kiddos there to experience the wonderful town and the state of Washington some day.