The last few weeks have been kind of interesting for me. I won unemployment, I nearly acquired another job, I didn’t manage to get a deer with a bow (yet), and turkey hunting started. So it’s been fairly eventful and not the best of times, but that’s life. Cliche I know. How happy we are is directly related to how we deal with the situations in our life. Ok, that’s my prophetic little point for the day. I don’t have many, so take note.
On track with this post though, I took a trip to wonderful Yakima, WA yesterday. Well, I guess I can’t call it wonderful because I don’t know the place that well. In truth, I am sort of frightened of the place. It has higher crime, and some very strange people, and it’s in the middle of a fairly arid steppe region of the state. Good place for hunting mule deer I’m sure. It’s also not too far from Mt Rainier and the Blue Ridge Mountains. So all in all, it could be worse.
I went with a friend of mine, Domenique. She asked me to go because she met this guy online that she wanted to meet. I’m sure many of you know how that goes. This was the first guy she’d met online, or in person, in a long time that is pretty much at the same place as her…emotionally and in maturity. Only catch, he’s right about ten years her senior. But, it’s early. So who knows how it will turn out. She’s still impressed with him and wants to keep moving forward, if at least a little slowly to make sure it’s what she wants and she can deal with the age gap.
So back to Yakima. I live in Spokane, WA so the drive took us around 3 hours each way to complete. On the way there we chatted the whole way talking about various things. That’s about all there is to do since the view is sage bush steppe. It’s pretty to an extent, but it’s kind of like driving through Nebraska…it gets old quick and it’s the same mile after mile. Texas along I-10 and I-20 is about the same…only it is more like being in the movie Mad Max. Once we got near Yakima, we started following the directions Domenique had printed off of Yahoo Maps. Now, I like Yahoo Maps, but this was definitely one notch in the bad category. I had looked at the directions and they seemed really long. Don’t read that as I actually read the directions, I just looked at them. It’s like reading a sign that says ‘Stay Out’ and just looking at it on your way by. You might catch that it says ‘Stay Out’, but more than likely you don’t care and it will just be a blur on your way to whatever disaster you are unintentionally seeking.
After the first part of the directions we realized that Yahoo Maps was taking us in circles. We thought maybe Domenique’s new friend had been playing with us to be funny…but then she realized she got the directions. Oops. Then I started looking harder at the directions. After we got off the second time, I realized that Yahoo Maps was going to make us go around in loops 3 times before it actually put us in the right place. Now why Yahoo Maps decided to do that, I haven’t the foggiest. It was funny, comical even, but it wasn’t going to get us to our destination. So Domenique called her friend and confirmed that the last 3 steps were the correct ones…out of 28. SWEET. So we managed to find the Appleby’s where they were going to meet. He’s a nice guy and has a good firm handshake. After dropping Domenique off to meet the guy, I went to do a little shopping.
I like to visit the gun shops in places where I’m visiting because I have found that they usually have something a little different than the usual. Every once in a blue moon you’ll find a steal you can’t pass up. I was hoping to find one of those. So the first place I decided to stop was Hammer’s Outdoor World. Name makes it seem more grandiose than it is…it’s a fairly small place. Despite that, it’s a nice place and they have a smattering of just about everything fishing and hunting including a decent little gun counter. The gunsmith is the guy I talked to at the gun counter and he’s a good guy and knowledgeable.
After that, I went to a place called Grumpy’s. Funny name, but another pretty good place. I managed to find a saw there that I had been looking for for a long time. I should mention that Grumpy’s is a surplus place as well as a fishing store and gun safe store. As I walked in there was a ginormous (yes, that’s a mixture of gigantic and enormous) safe right up front that was fire rated for 59 minutes…and it only cost $3k. I was impressed. I think it was even bigger than my dad’s gun safe. In any case, a nice place and nice people. I encourage people to stop there as well if they’re in Union Gap or Yakima.
After that, I went back and read a while until Domenique and her friend had talked for 3 hours or so and decided to come out into the light of day again. At that point we packed up our things and headed into Yakima proper in search of a couple more shops. We found them but they weren’t quite as good. One was Guns West II and they had a great selection of rifles and pistols…but they were almost all the full size of everything. They had very little that was applicable to concealed carry or pistols that women might want to shoot. They carried a lot more of the run-of-the-mill stuff that’s being pushed right now, Glock, Sig, S&W, etc. The last place we tried before heading home was a place right on the south side of Selah next to the police station. Tiny little shop, but he’s got a ranging selection and some good stuff. Nice guy too. I would recommend stopping there if you get a chance. It’s called Ace Arms.
After that, we attempted to get out of Selah and back on the highway by going north and that didn’t work. We did see a girl in her 20′s maybe wearing a sort of helmet/hat with cat ears that ended up dancing around in her own world on the sidewalk. That was comical. Though a little scary and bolstering Yakima’s stereotype. Finally we managed to get back onto the highway going north back home. We spent the next three hours listening to an interesting range of music…lots of songs I hadn’t heard in a loooong time.
All in all, it was a fun trip though and it was nice to get out of town for a day and do something a little different. You may thing it’s easy to do so being unemployed, but it’s not. It still costs money. And if you’re like me, you still have a moral obligation to be a partner in your marriage to find a job and earn an income. You also have an obligation to the rest of the US citizens not to sit on your ass and collect unemployement when you could be working. So off I go to attempt to find a job for myself like I have been the last two and a half months. Wish me luck. I like earning more money than unemployment anyway…it makes traveling that much more worth it.
Peace out.
Tags: Ace Arms, Grumpy's, guns, Hammer's Outdoor World, online dating, washington, Yakima
