Reflecting on living here for a year

In two weeks, I’ll have been in the Columbia Basin for a year.

I admit, I love milestones. I can make an anniversary out of anything. Really, anything. I can turn a piece of cellophane on my floor into an anniversary. Go out and get a cake, some ice cream and voila, it’s the two month anniversary of the time I picked up the discarded cigarette wrapper off of my floor.

OK, I’m not quite that bad.

But I’m almost that bad.

I blame it on an overgrown sense of nostalgia. I still have an alarm clock I bought when I was living in Iowa in 1996. The clock still works, but the tape deck (yes, it has a tape deck.) doesn’t. Not that I have any tapes to put into it. Also, the buttons are really sensitive, so if I sneeze the wrong way when I’m changing the time, it jumps 10 minutes.

But it’s been with me since Iowa.

I also have a duffel bag from that time in my life. I have a oversized letter opener my soon-to-be brother-in-law bought me two Christmases ago. I have a collection of neat bottles I found when I was growing up (including a Sioux City Sarsaparilla bottle.) I own boxes of books, dating back to before my grandmother died in 1989. Not to mention a collection of unused notebooks sitting in a storage unit in Maryland.

I won’t throw any of it away.

The longer I have stuff, the more emotional I get about keeping it.

So its not terribly surprising that the longer I live somewhere, the more emotional I get about staying there.

The Columbia Basin certainly has its quirks. I mean Moses Lake is the first city I’ve lived in of less than 20,000 people with not one, but two roundabouts. Every city has its characters and issues. They’re all interesting and fun.

I’ve learned my fair share since I’ve been here, too:

• There are two speeds on state Route 17, 55 mph or 65 mph, and invariably you will get stuck behind one and in front of another.

• It’s easier to enter Walgreens from Stratford Road and leave on Broadway Avenue.

• There are a lot of civic groups, all trying to do a lot of good work in a lot of places. Not to mention there’s a lot of history in a lot of places in Adams and Grant counties.

• The best places to sit outside to read are Sinkiuse Square and in front of the Grant County Courthouse on a weekend.

• Soap Lake at sunset is amazing.

• Driving to Coulee City on state Route 17 is an adventure.

• Sun Basin Plaza in Ephrata is bigger than it looks and prettier than it might seem.

• Gas is less expensive in Moses Lake.

• I can’t seem to find a bathroom on the second floor of the Grant County Courthouse near the commissioners’ office.

• I’ve never been anywhere where people care as much about their neighbors as the Columbia Basin and that is pretty amazing.

So it’s been a fun year here in the Basin, and I’m hoping to have a lot more.

Cameron Probert is the Columbia Basin Herald county reporter. Each week he takes on more characteristics of a Columbia Basin native.