Olympia

Good Morning All!

Monday we explored the Olympia area. We had to go kind of far and wide, because…well…there isn’t much to do in Olympia when you are here on Monday and Tuesday (the Farmer’s Market runs Thursday-Sunday). In fact, there isn’t much to do here in Olympia, period. We drove over to the Tumwater area to visit the Tumwater Falls, though! It was beautiful and peaceful. There, we had lunch at the Terrace Restaurant, which overlooks the falls. We ate deep fried avocado with bleu cheese dressing (so surprisingly good we can’t believe we havn’t stumbled upon this delicacy before) and a burger dip (like a French dip but with hamburger). We then drove out to the Mima Mounds. This is an area were there is a bunch of seven-foot-high mounds of earth that scientist can still not explain their origins or existence. More interesting were the beautiful flowers growing all around the area. And more interesting, or maybe frightening, were the drunken couple that flew (literally) up the one lane road to the site behind us in a giant Ford truck. The deliverance song popped in our heads, George even began mouthing it. The couple jumped out of their truck and followed us fast up the trail and asked, “Where are you from?” George was ready to fight to the death! But it turned out they were just drunk (did I mention they were drunk?) and wanted to lay down on the information dome. Go figure.

After the mounds experience and the drunken couple trauma, we decided to take a drive out to the coast. While most of what we saw was depressing, as the towns were small and obviously economically impoverished, we did stumble upon a jewel of a store in Aberdeen, WA: Sucher and Sons Star Wars Shop! This store was started when the owner wanted to find something to keep his pre-teen sons occupied one summer and it sort of took off from there. It was full of everything Star Wars you could imagine from the original toys and comic books to pizza boxes and soda cans. Honestly if you’re looking for anything, and I mean anything, Star Wars this would be the one-stop-shop to find it. George spent his entire time taking pictures of everything, while I reminisced about the original Millennium Falcon that was exactly like the one Ken and I had. Of course, I couldn’t leave the store without Chewbacca and Yoda miniature action figures…for sentimental reasons. The owner was entertaining and informative. He also had an awesome tattoo of Princess Lea on his left deltoid, underneath which he had Carrie Fisher’s tattooed-over signature. Yes, he had that signature tattooed over so he permanently has her signature on his arm as well.

We returned to Olympia and after resting in our room for about an hour, we went to dinner. We ended up at La Taqueria, as I had a craving for Mexican food. George wanted Asian food, but he capitulated to his ethnic roots and my desire ;-)p How was La Taqueria, you ask? Well, our first clue that this might not be up to our Southern San Diego standards was the fact that our waiter kept calling us “amigos”. George wanted to punch him the throat after the fourth “amigos”. But then the chips and salsa came, which seemed pretty authentic. So, we ordered. I was in the mood for tacos, I ordered the taco combination and George got the chimichanga. Yeah, well…I ended up getting something akin to Taco Bell tacos: powdered ground beef and processed hard-shells. George’s dish was a little more authentically made, but the taste was super-sub-par, and somehow neither of these indiscretions stopped us from eating (even finishing our plates) and paying with upset tummies (you don’t wanna know what happened) the rest of the night.

So, without further adieux: goodbye Olympia! Hello Portland! We still miss Seattle :-(

Love Johanna and George.