HOQUIAM, Wash.
I took a walk out to Dog Marsh, on the Grays Harbor bay between Eighth and K streets in Hoquiam, for @tattoodjay’s #wednesdaywalk challenge.
Wednesday Walk is a Steem Basic Income challenge and giveaway. Participants are encouraged to walk a short distance from their home or work and then write a post with photos of the walk for a chance to earn shares in the SBI program.
Thankfully, @tattoodjay doesn’t require that the walk happen on a Wednesday. I had time Tuesday after work for my walk.
This first shot is of Karr’s Hill, taken from right outside my apartment building on the corner of Jefferson Street and Karr Avenue. The hill (as well as the street) is named after James Karr, one of the first white dudes to settle in the area that became Hoquiam.
It’s a 12-block walk from my place out to Dog Marsh. About three-quarters of the way there, along K Street, I stopped for this view of my favorite hill.
My favorite is the hill in the center of the photo. It’s usually one of the first things I look at out of my apartment window when I wake up in the morning. I haven’t uncovered a name for it yet.
The hill to the right is Beacon Hill, formerly Campbell’s Hill. Ed Campbell came to the area around the same time as Karr and chose the name Hoquiam for the early settlement when he set up the first post office.
The name is derived from the Native American word for the river that runs through town. It means “hungry for wood.” They called the river that because of the driftwood that gathered at its mouth, which forms the eastern boundary of what is now Dog Marsh.
A little farther along K Street, I stopped for a pic of these houses. Hoquiam has quite a few homes painted in bright, somewhat offbeat colors like these.
After the last residential block, I crossed the tracks of the Puget Sound and Pacific Railroad and entered Dog Marsh. I saw the lady and her dog featured in the headline photo right away. I was bound to see someone walking their dog at that time of day: Columnist Kristine Lowder called the site Dog Marsh in a 2018 article because of the marshy ground and its popularity with local dog owners.
This no-littering sign has been tacked to that telephone pole since I started walking out there five summers ago. Someone maintains it with a fresh coat of paint on occasion, though it looks like it’s been awhile.
People follow the rule almost perfectly.
I set my 10-inch tripod on the gravel path to get this shot of the clouds.
After that my camera battery started dying, so I had to keep turning the camera off to let it recharge a little. I used some of the downtime to jump over the drainage ditch beside the railroad tracks and venture out onto the trestle on the Hoquiam River. This shot shows the eastern edge of Dog Marsh and the mouth of the river where it enters the bay.
While I was on the trestle, a boat motored past on its way out of the river. I expected it to turn right into the bay, but instead it turned left and headed up the Chehalis River, which runs through the neighboring city of Aberdeen.
My camera battery was pretty much dead at that point. I put the camera away and just enjoyed the walk for awhile. I managed to get one final shot, near the western edge of Dog Marsh looking east toward the Port of Grays Harbor terminals.
As you can see, there’s still plenty of driftwood in Hoquiam.