Greater Seattle

After our day of sight-seeing in the big city, we moved our bases of operation to the southern part of Puget Sound in anticipation of wedding festivities in and around Centralia. And we found, to our delight, that there was plenty to see in that area, too.

The shot above is of a busy marina in Olympia, with the extremely handsome Washington state capitol in the background. Yes, the clouds have returned, but we still dodged the rain bullet, and only got slightly sprinkled on during our excursions in the area.

Olympia isn't just the state capital, but also a bustling port. In addition to marinas like the one shown above, there were also some larger vessels loading here. And I expect the most common cargo must be enormous logs like these...

While walking the length of one block in Olympis (admittedly slowly, since the granddaughter had to stop frequently and do a lot of dirt and rock examining, as well as climb up and run down any incline numerous times) we saw 2 or 3 of these trucks heading for the docks...

They have a LOT of really big trees up here! And I'll show you some of them (still in the ground) in a future post.

We were pretty impressed with Olympia—they have a nice farmer's market, coffee-snob-approved coffee shops, and a terrific children's museum where we spent most of a day with the grandchild. And we also had a big family lunch at Tugboat Annie's, a funkily authentic seafood eatery right on the water, complete with cute decorative touches and great food...

note the personalized Texas plate that reads "San Antonio" on the far right

I have kids who agree that "beer is the answer..."

It's actually pretty easy to be "on the water" around here, and it's not surprising that they have such great seafood*...take a look at this map of the Sound posted at a waterfront park:

so many little inlets, sloughs (no doubt!) and lakes!

*Although it's apparently not all locally sourced! Here's a display that caught our eye in the Pike Market:

I wonder if they were shipped in on the same plane as our Maine-rs?

Finishing up my impressions of Olympia, you just can't say enough about their capitol building. Isn't it a handsome structure? And in a great setting...

capitol from across its lake, in the parking area for Heritage Park
(note, again, the clear blue sky!)

from a neighboring street (we don't know what the pinwheels are for;
 some kind of protest or memorial?)

Centralia, where the wedding festivities happened, has its interesting aspects, too. In fact, right across the street from our Centralia Square Ballroom and Hotel (it's so nice to be quartered in the same venue as the event!) was a lovely little park with not only lots of wonderful flowers and trees (more about these in later posts), but also a very intriguing set of memorials. 

Part of it is a somewhat traditional listing of the war dead of  of the area...

and that's a handsome Carnegie Library (built in 1911) in the background

Here's another shot of the slab with the names listed, and with members of younger generations in the background...

The statue, however, doesn't memorialize war dead, at least not directly. It seems that on Armistice Day, 1919, just a year after the end of World War I, there was a violent labor confrontation in this quiet little town, between American Legionnaires and members of the IWW, or "Wobblies." Here's Wikipedia's information on the incident. 

The memorial lists names of the marching veterans who were killed in the riot:

Later a Wobbly was taken from the local jail and lynched, as well. Another, more lurid, account of the incident was painted on a wall of our very hotel, a mural facing the square and providing one side of a lovely veranda where it was quite nice for us to sit and wait for the wedding fun to begin...

two flower girls wait for their big moment

Believe me, it caused quite a bit of puzzlement as we sat and relaxed. I think you'll agree if you study the reproduction in the link above. It was good to find that link and get a full explanation of its symbolism, although we did have some ideas about its subject matter after we visited the memorial across the street. 

Fascinating small-town history, indeed!

The hotel was a very interesting place, recently refurbished but retaining a lot of its 1920's charm (and lack of amenities: no TVs—not missed—or elevator!).

And across the street was that lovely park, where the big attraction is a marvelous, massive, cherry tree in full bloom! You can see some of it in this shot I took of the hotel façade (along with a glimpse of that mural). 

More about cherry blossoms, and other fabulous Washington spring flowers, next time!