I can tell you that every time I drive by or through it, I thank God, the universe, and everything that I don't live there. No matter how bad life gets, at least I don't live in Longview. (No offense to those that are forced to live in Longview.)

Sorry for your loss. I hope you have pictures of you climbing it in the past.

I lived there for 3 years. On rainy or humid days expect the horrid reek of the paper mill to haunt you. A lot of homeless people. I saw tons of litte camps when I’d go for walks and got my truck broke into and a guy stole a knife out of it. The stores are nice and the target is actually better than the Vancouver one. It was an okay place to live but I wouldn’t call it anything special.

You’ll love squirrel fest.

I worked there and commuted from Olympia for two years, definitely beautiful but I don’t love the people there. Very small town vibe, and not in the best way. Spent probably more time there than in Oly to be honest and I’d pay the Oly premium for only 23 mins away

I encourage you to look into paid family and medical leave

Is a hike really worth it when you also see an industrial complex (of sorts)? Nah. #1 reason I don’t hike Issaquah.

Rest in peace, sweet old tree. Thank you for the years of shade and adventure!

The town is super proud of it's suspension bridges for squirrels but doesn't have much else going on.

Thanks I’ll check it out. Glad we had this chat ha

Yes, there is a WSDOT app. Quite useful

The app or the website? The website is just so clunky on a phone. If there is one I didn’t realize there’s an app. I drive a lot (long commute) and alternate with Google maps and waze

I use the app. I’m a commercial driver. It’s a very good tool for me. One of the better ones that I have for multiple states. Sorry it doesn’t work for you

Yeah. I mean it seems anywhere you go you’re gonna have your downsides. Bad neighborhoods in every town. If you can afford to stay out of the ghetto this town is pretty nice. Sea lions are definitely a sad situation. Hope they legalize hunting them soon

Unnecessary there was nothing wrong with the old one. You could quick glance. I’m generally not using it to deep dive at home. Zoom in, takes long to reload the zoomed map, clogged with icons.

Must have changed a lot since I grew up in the area, huge meth problem, pretty regular gang violence don't get me wrong it definitely has it's charm but I'm glad I left especially with the sea lion problem they have there. If you enjoy fishing those suckered are ruining fishing in the area.

II grew up there but I haven't spent much time there in 25 years so I can't really speak to current attitudes or governance or housing opportunities.

You may find it cliquee smaller towns seem to be. But it's the "big town" in the area so it's a lot less isolationist than you might think of a town that size

It's a bit redneck MAGA type place. Very blue collar with the mills and logging background.

I wouldn't feel especially worried being a minority. Plenty of Asian and Hispanic folks (relative to a lot of smaller western washington towns.) And much higher black population than when I lived there.

It's a "planned/designed city" so it has a cute downtown area. For what that's worth these days.

It has a beautiful park in Lake Sacajawea where they have great 4th of July festivities.

It's 1hour+ to the long Beach peninsula. 1.75 hours to cannon beach.

Mount St hellens is 30 miles away.

You can shoot over to eastern Washington, which is a whole different geography, in a few hours.

Portland is an hour away if you need a big city fix.

It's mostly surrounded by forest so you'd do well to get a Weyerhaeuser land pass for hiking and such.

There are much much worse smaller towns/areas that you could end up in Washington or Oregon.

Hope this helps.

Zoom in

Yes. It IS amazing, and it IS beautiful. In fact, thanks to social media, now EVERYONE knows how amazing it is here...say hello to your new neighbor(s)...and the 50-other people on the ledge behind you.

Moved here from cali. I’ve traveled around 46 states. I can definitely say it’s my favorite place to be. Homeless are hardly here and get cleaned up fast. Small town feel (same faces at cash registers). They have an awesome boat ramp/park called willow grove where you can see sea lions (I think that’s what they are) and other wildlife not to mention huge ships passing by. You get all 4 seasons, spring being amazing here with lots of colors. Close to mt st Helen’s

Originally midwest

You can thank Weyerhaeuser for a century of planting monoculture to feed their sawmills.

As a long time user of their old website I’m always amazed at how they ruined this. Used to be able to quickly see the traffic map with the incidents on the sidebar. Now it’s always the entire state map with copious amounts of icons or endless drop downs to find info. It is super frustrating

Where are you coming from?

Idk, Marysville is pretty horrible and lake Stevens is getting there too. As long as I've been in Snohomish, granite falls has a reputation for a bad meth problem, too.