A Day of Nostalgia in Olympia – Post 27 of our August Seattle trip

Here’s another flashback post from our Seattle trip in August. I still have a few more of those posts to do.

After we had both nearly forgotten about my birthday, John was determined to find something memorable to do that day. What could be better for a birthday than a nostalgic trip to the town where I raised the kids?

Seattle is just over an hour’s drive from Olympia, where the kids and I lived in the 1990’s. Wow, so long ago! I eventually moved to southern California, and then to New Mexico, because I was not a fan of rain and dark gloom eleven months out of the year. So it was quite a privilege to be able to come back and visit during the one sunny month of the year (August).

We started at an art gallery in the little downtown area, but we didn’t buy anything. The vibe wasn’t right for Tucson decor. But it was fun to see the local Puget Sound environment reflected in the paintings.

Next we went to the waterfront. Olympia’s small downtown and the state capitol building is located at the south end of the West Bay of Budd Inlet, the very far southern reaches of the Puget Sound.

We enjoyed watching the orange jellyfish in the water.

This one’s for Serenity:

We had lunch on the patio at Budd Bay Café. (Yep, it’s still there!) While we were eating, someone nearby caught their chair leg in the wide gaps between the planks. When her chair leg went down into the gap, it threw her completely off her chair onto the ground. Someone else nearby said it almost happened to him too and he had to grab the patio railing to keep from falling. Then our waitress admitted that it happened all the time. Whaa? All the time? What is management thinking? They’re going to get sued. Just weld some wider plates onto the bottom of the chair legs or buy a different style of chair or something!

After lunch we went to my favorite hike in town, at Priest Point Park along the bay. The new name for Priest Point Park is Squaxin Park. No, I don’t know how to pronounce that. The name is new since I lived there.

The park has a beautiful set of looping trails through the trees and along the bay.

Here I am on the mud flats.

While we were walking along, suddenly I looked up and exclaimed, “The bear!” John did not know what I was talking about. A bear?

See, climbing the trunk of that tree?

It’s an ancient wooden bear that’s been there for who knows how many years. I remembered it was a bear before we were close enough to make it out. It’s been there since at least the 1990’s, possibly much longer.

Here’s a peek-a-boo view of the capitol building across the inlet.

We were hunting for the tree that Laura and her friends would sit on in high school. At first I thought it was a different one, but then John saw this and was like, yeah, this is the one for sure. Laura, John found your tree!

John was impressed by the simplicity and durability of the bridge construction.

It was so green.

The house where we lived was a tiny old house within walking distance of the park. At the time it wasn’t a fancy neighborhood but it was an excellent location right near the park and the water, and not far from downtown.

It’s hidden back there. Those big bushes were there when we lived there too, but not that nice wooden gate.

It was a 2-bedroom, 1 bathroom house, but the internet says it is now 1.25 bath, so the new owners must have added a quarter bath. It looks like they tore down the old garage and built an addition there on the right. It’s got a nice new roof. And it’s no longer painted bright blue. But it’s still dark as heck back in there.

I bought it for about $90,000 in 1997 and sold it for 190,000 in 2005. (I kept it as a rental from 2001-2005 when I lived in southern California, and didn’t sell it until I was moving to Albuquerque.) It is now worth about $460,000 according to the internet. If you don’t mind darkness and gloom even on the brightest summer day, then you’d like this house. I wonder if the old plum tree in the back is still alive?

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