Sunday 3 Sep - Olympia, WA

A lazy day in the South Sound a.k.a. Olympia, WA. Although Fall is nearly here, the weather continues to be balmy with sunny skies – a post-card day for the local Chamber of Commerce.

This weekend, Labor Day, is another “festival” day in Olympia – Harbor Days. In addition to the tug-boat races, there are street vendors set up along the waterfront hawking their wares. This is addition to the regular Farmers’ Market that takes place every weekend from April through October. Both venues are within a few blocks of one another so it gets quite congested and parking is limited.

Today we had breakfast at the Spar Café. Built in 1935, it retains the décor of the 30’s with bar counter, high ceilings, and photos of the logging industry from the early 20th century. The menu is extensive and food superb. I had Dungeness crab omelet – something that you don’t see at Denny’s or corner coffee shop. Margaret settled for eggs Benedict and declared them excellent. We had eaten at the Spar Café back in the late 80’s when we were in town. It hadn’t changed in 20 years.

After breakfast we wandered the downtown streets. Seemed like every other shop was a Oriental Restaurant, Indian cuisine, and a place advertising Bar food (whatever that is). One could spend several weeks here and never eat at the same place twice. We’re not sure if it’s because Olympia is a college town or because it’s the state capital of Washington.

We also found a unique wine store. They were having wine tasting from 2 – 4 this afternoon but we couldn’t stay. I call it unique because they had wines and labels I’d never seen before; mostly small boutique wineries from Washington and Oregon but also some from California, South Africa, and other countries. A very diverse collection. When you enter the store, they have stacks of assorted wines in boxes along the front. When asked about these, they said the wines were their favorites and reasonably priced. Novel concept for a wine store! (They also had several bottles at $75 and above, so they weren’t completely cheap!) They had me convinced when I found the stack of Cartlidge and Brown Pinot Noir they had labeled as the best inexpensive Pinot Noir to be had. Since this is one of my all-time favorites I decided they knew what they were talking about!

We finished the afternoon with our favorite p.m. past-time – a nap. We’re going to pick up a bake-it-at-home pizza from Doby’s which is reported to be better than PaPa Murphy. We’ll report back on that.

Today’s photo is from yesterday’s tug-boat race assemblage. Actually the race was today so we missed it. But yesterday many of the tugs were parked together in the harbor and the public was invited to walk on aboard and see what a working tug looks like. Most were shiny and clean; probably not the way they appear when actually at work! I found it difficult to get really good photos. When you’re unfamiliar with the subject, it’s hard to know what will and won’t work. Although you may not be able to see it in the photo, the Olympic mountain range is a faint outline on the horizon and there is a small group of kayakers heading out into Budd Inlet- the south end of Puget Sound.