On a crisp Saturday morning in January, I took a walk around Hoquiam for the #wednesdaywalk challenge created by 
The #wednesdaywalk is a popular, Steem Basic Income contest that brings together photographers from all over the U.S. and the world for a “short walk” to get some shots of “what you can see within a short distance of your home or office or wherever you start.”
You can read the guidelines for the challenge here (thankfully they donʼt require the walk to happen on Wednesday!). And be sure to check out the diverse array of locales and landscapes presented under the #wednesdaywalk tag. Iʼve especially enjoyed seeing and reading about the East Coast winter – from the relative comfort of the Washington coast, where it rarely snows and I havenʼt seen a temperature reading below 25 degrees Fahrenheit this year!
The temperature was in the lower 30s when I took my walk, cold enough to chill the fingers and put some frost on the rooftops. I started shooting about three blocks from my apartment, on the corner of Third and L streets, with this neat color blocking between the “Herbie” Beetle and its purple house.*
Hoquiam is replete with brightly and unconventionally colored homes like this, in a variety of architectural styles; itʼs the characteristic of town that I first fell in love with when I moved here five years ago. With the bright colors and little homes, especially those nested in the hills among the evergreens, the town felt to me like the Shire in the Lord of the Rings movies.
After Third and L, I walked down Third and came across these kitties chowing down.
I headed downtown and found the scene in todayʼs headline photo on the corner of Sixth and J streets. I thought the blue on the gas station and signs across the street would pop with a color splash edit; it wasnʼt till editing that I realized (duh) that the blue sky would stand out too!
Hereʼs the full-color, uncropped version of that photo. Thatʼs Riverside Bridge on the Hoquiam River at left.
A block farther down J Street, I interrupted Mr. Crow checking his plummage in the glass door on the dentistʼs office.
He seemed a little miffed as he walked away ...
… but then he flew up and joined his friend for a photo next to 7th Street Theatre.
The 7th Street Theatre is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was built in 1928 and is in operation today, showing classic movies and staging musicals through 7th Street Kids. According to the theatre website, it is “one of the few remaining atmospheric-style theatres on the West Coast. The theatreʼs unique interior … transforms ... into a simulated open-air playhouse with a painted ʽskyʼ ceiling complete with clouds and twinkling stars.”
It really is something to see and perhaps to take photos of someday. For now it seems the perfect place to wrap up a #wednesdaywalk – and that day it probably seemed perfect because my fingers were cold!
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*For anyone who doesn't know, the nickname “Herbie” comes from the film series, which began in 1968 with The Love Bug, about a 1963 Volkswagen Beetle named Herbie. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbie