Tacoma: Family, Dogs, and Lake Sunsets

After two and a half days on the Empire Builder, I was not craving more motion. What I wanted was a couch, a dog in my lap, and someone who’d known me since I was twelve and annoying. Tacoma delivered on all three counts, in roughly that order.

My stepbrother lives here in a house that feels like the Pacific Northwest distilled into a single property — tall evergreens in the yard, the smell of cedar, a quiet that hits different when you’ve been sleeping in a roomette for two nights. Dropped my bags. Sat down on the couch. Was immediately swarmed by two schnauzers who appeared to have decided I was the most interesting thing that had happened to them all week.

The Schnauzer Welcome Committee

There’s something deeply restorative about being greeted by dogs. They don’t ask how the trip was. They don’t need a debrief. They just need to sniff you thoroughly — every inch, with complete seriousness — and then sit on your feet, and somehow that is enough. My stepbrother’s two schnauzers took turns claiming my lap for most of the afternoon. One silver, one black. Both absolutely certain they were the right dog for whatever the situation required.

We spent the day catching up the way you do with family — half-finished sentences, old jokes that don’t require setup anymore, comfortable pauses that would be awkward with anyone else. I’d been moving since Chicago. This was the first day where nothing was required of me except to sit there and be present, and I needed it more than I’d realized until I was in the middle of it.

That’s a thing about solo travel that doesn’t get discussed much: the cumulative weight of being solely responsible for every decision, every navigation, every interaction with a stranger. Where to eat. What to see. Whether to stay or move on. It’s genuinely freeing and also, after a while, genuinely tiring. The relief of landing somewhere with people who already know you — who don’t need to be charmed or impressed or explained to — is hard to overstate.

Tacoma, Actually

Tacoma gets underestimated, and I say that as someone who came in with low expectations that turned out to be wrong. The city sits on Commencement Bay at the south end of Puget Sound, with views of the water on clear days and the mountain — Rainier, which is visible from here on a clear day and is genuinely staggering every single time — looming to the southeast. The downtown has been through its rougher decades and come out on the other side: arts scene, decent restaurants, a glass museum that I’d heard good things about and made a mental note to see before I left.

But this first day wasn’t about any of that. This day was couch and dogs and catching up and eventually, the lake.

The Lake at Golden Hour

Here’s something nobody tells you about Pacific Northwest summers: the light is something else entirely. The sun doesn’t set until almost ten, and for the last hour or two of the day, everything turns a gold that has nothing metaphorical about it — actual, honey-colored, makes-you-squint gold that pours through the trees and across the water like a physical substance. I grew up on the East Coast. Summer light is not like this at home.

We drove to a lake that evening. One of those suburban lakes that locals know about — small beach, parking lot, families packing up their coolers as the evening cooled. Nothing particularly remarkable on paper. At golden hour, something else entirely.

The water was glassy and still, reflecting the sky in that doubled way that makes you feel briefly like you’re floating between two identical sunsets. The evergreens across the far shore were in dark silhouette. The whole scene had the quality of a painting you’d dismiss as too pretty if you saw it hanging somewhere, but here it was just existing, no admission fee required, geese included at no extra charge.

The geese. There was a group of them that had claimed the near shore — Canada geese, gliding in loose formation, completely unbothered by the humans standing around on the beach having feelings about the light. They had the serene confidence of creatures that know exactly where they stand in the local hierarchy, which is at the top of it.

Stood at the edge of the water for a while watching the light do its slow thing. Took some photos, most of which won’t be as good as the memory. That’s fine. The memory is the point.

What This Week Was For

Tacoma was going to be my home base for the PNW part of the trip — a week or so of day trips to Seattle, a run out to Rainier, some time just being in the region before the drive south and then the long road back east. Good base. Close to everything, cheaper than Seattle, and I had somewhere to stay that didn’t require checking in or checking out on a schedule.

But that evening, standing at a lake watching geese, none of that planning was in my head. I just needed this day. The couch, the dogs, the lake at sunset. The reminder that not every day on a trip has to be an event — that sometimes the best day is the one where you stop moving and let the place come to you.

The schnauzers were already asleep on my feet by nine. That felt exactly right.