It’s Memorial Day Weekend – the unofficial start of summer. We returned last night from our trip to Great Grandma’s house. Great Grandma is 91 years old and lives in the tiniest little town I’ve every been to. For real. See that little dot of a town, out there in the distance? That is Harrington, Washington. That’s the whole town.
Here’s Main Street. There is one mini-market open in the town and that’s it. Everything else is boarded up and it looks a bit like a ghost town. I absolutely love the cool old buildings and often think about how much fun it would be to see this town rebuilt and reinvented.
It’s still a farming community. The trains roll through at all hours of the day and night.
The reason we go to Harrington, in addition to visiting Great Grandma, is because in a small town like this the cemetery is the most important place on Memorial Day Weekend, and Great Grandma can’t take care of the graves by herself anymore.
We visit one in Harrington and one in Odessa. We spend lots of time being introduced to people who are doing the exact same thing we are – planting flowers and paying respect.
The town of Harrington has the most amazing old architecture. Here’s City Hall. The last time we were there, someone was actually renting this building and living in it. This year, it’s vacant again.
There’s a house for sale just two doors down from Great Grandma. I’m sure it’s well under $50,000.
The paintings on the sides of the building just remind me of days gone by.
There is one guy in town who bought a big old building and now stores his old cars in it. It was a sunny day, so he was out washing a few cars and moving them around.
I told my hubby that the town was truly one step away from being a ghost town. He reminded me that there is actually a tavern in town. But, then we noticed that the tavern was shut down too. Yep, I’m going with ghost town on this one.
Harrington is really a beautiful place. Everyone knows everyone and people are very helpful, especially to a 91 year old woman.
Happy Memorial Day!
