Sam and I invite you to Olympia this summer. If you’ve never traveled to Washington State this is a good time – unless you are a terrorist. We don’t want to be bombed or shot.
Actually, Sam and I and Kathleen (the lady of the house) live in Lacey, next door to Olympia. Lacey, as I have explained many times to friends, is a town without very definable borders and looks like a cancerous growth on the butt of Olympia, but we like it.
We’d enjoy having you visit unless you’re like the bad guy in Norway and not too keen on ethnic diversity. The Olympia area is a rich melting pot of people of all races speaking a polyglot of languages. We have American Indians, Black Americans, Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipinos, Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Native Hawaiian Islanders, Guamanians, Samoans, Hispanics, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and more. Better yet, we seem to have a restaurant for each ethnicity, which makes for some totally yummy eating. Kathleen and I currently favor a little Salvadoran joint. Sam enjoys the doggy bags too.
In honor of our rich ethnic diversity, we host an event every February called the Procession of the Species. This parade, to commemorate Earth Day, often features weird life forms from outer (or inner) space and draws nearly 30,000 spectators. Many of the parade creatures show up at The Evergreen State College graduation later in the year too. I watched the graduation ceremony one time when Governor Gregoire handed out diplomas to people dressed in sheets and boxes and dinosaur costumes – and those were just the cute ones.
We have Dragon Boat races here. This annual celebration, hosted by Saint Martin’s University, features spirited dragon boat races (Kathleen’s crew fell overboard two years ago), Chinese traditional art demonstrations, traditional lion dances, music, and martial arts performances.
Olympia also is home to the Oly Rollers, a women’s flat track roller derby league. That may be because women outnumber men here 52.21% to 47.79%. I’m suddenly reminded of that old country song about the women all getting prettier at closing time. Too bad Olympia Brewery, which called this area home since the late 1800’s fell on hard times and the plant now sits idle waiting for somebody to buy it and demolish it. Strangely enough, Olympia is located at the southern end of Puget Sound on Budd Inlet, but the brewery company apparently let that outfit with the horses steal the saying, “This Bud’s for you,”
If you do vacation to this area, make sure you bring a coat and/or raincoat. We have had more rainy days per year on average over the past 30 years than any city in the lower 48 states – especially this year!! And we average 75% cloud cover. On the other hand, if the Seattle Mariners could put together a decent win streak, nobody would care about the weather. The ballpark has a nice lid.
Shoot! I almost forgot to mention that Olympia is the capitol city of Washington. I don’t recommend a tour of the capitol building. All the grey marble inside makes it look like a huge men’s urinal, otherwise it's nice,
Anyway, ya’ll come see us. We’ll try to leave a few Northern Lights on for you. Ciao!
Actually, Sam and I and Kathleen (the lady of the house) live in Lacey, next door to Olympia. Lacey, as I have explained many times to friends, is a town without very definable borders and looks like a cancerous growth on the butt of Olympia, but we like it.
We’d enjoy having you visit unless you’re like the bad guy in Norway and not too keen on ethnic diversity. The Olympia area is a rich melting pot of people of all races speaking a polyglot of languages. We have American Indians, Black Americans, Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipinos, Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Native Hawaiian Islanders, Guamanians, Samoans, Hispanics, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and more. Better yet, we seem to have a restaurant for each ethnicity, which makes for some totally yummy eating. Kathleen and I currently favor a little Salvadoran joint. Sam enjoys the doggy bags too.
In honor of our rich ethnic diversity, we host an event every February called the Procession of the Species. This parade, to commemorate Earth Day, often features weird life forms from outer (or inner) space and draws nearly 30,000 spectators. Many of the parade creatures show up at The Evergreen State College graduation later in the year too. I watched the graduation ceremony one time when Governor Gregoire handed out diplomas to people dressed in sheets and boxes and dinosaur costumes – and those were just the cute ones.
We have Dragon Boat races here. This annual celebration, hosted by Saint Martin’s University, features spirited dragon boat races (Kathleen’s crew fell overboard two years ago), Chinese traditional art demonstrations, traditional lion dances, music, and martial arts performances.
Olympia also is home to the Oly Rollers, a women’s flat track roller derby league. That may be because women outnumber men here 52.21% to 47.79%. I’m suddenly reminded of that old country song about the women all getting prettier at closing time. Too bad Olympia Brewery, which called this area home since the late 1800’s fell on hard times and the plant now sits idle waiting for somebody to buy it and demolish it. Strangely enough, Olympia is located at the southern end of Puget Sound on Budd Inlet, but the brewery company apparently let that outfit with the horses steal the saying, “This Bud’s for you,”
If you do vacation to this area, make sure you bring a coat and/or raincoat. We have had more rainy days per year on average over the past 30 years than any city in the lower 48 states – especially this year!! And we average 75% cloud cover. On the other hand, if the Seattle Mariners could put together a decent win streak, nobody would care about the weather. The ballpark has a nice lid.
Shoot! I almost forgot to mention that Olympia is the capitol city of Washington. I don’t recommend a tour of the capitol building. All the grey marble inside makes it look like a huge men’s urinal, otherwise it's nice,
Anyway, ya’ll come see us. We’ll try to leave a few Northern Lights on for you. Ciao!
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