Aberdeen to Olympia, WA

 More Details and Photos to Follow.

Drive from Westport to Aberdeen, then to Olympia, then to Vancouver.

South Puget Sound Travel Day Three

We both continued to struggle overnight with coughing, sinus pain, tiredness, aches and other cold sypmptoms.  We gathered our belongings and left for Vancouver early in the morning.  

When we got home we both were feeling quite ill.  We tested and found that we both had the COVID 19 Flu virus.  

Mima Mounds, Tumwater, WA

Tumwater, WA

City of Olympia, Washington  Images

Weyhauser Rhododendron Garden and Pacific Bonsai Garden

Little Creek Resort and Casino in Kamilche

Squaxin Island Museum, Kamilche

Shelton, WA  Images

South Puget Sound, WA

Hood Canal   Images

Skokomish River   Images

Skokomish Indian Cultural Center

Potlach State Park

Hoodsport

Over the past three decades, Karen and I have stayed overnight, dined and/or played
at numerous Indian Resorts and Casinos in Washington and Oregon:

Little Creek Resort and Casino in Shelton/Kamilche,
Little Skookum Inlet, Totten Inlet, South Puget Sound WA;

Ilani in La Center WA; Wildhorse in Pendelton OR;
Seven Feathers, Canyonville OR; Northern Quest, Spokane, WA:

Legends, Yakima WA; Spirit Mountain, Grand Ronde OR:
Mill, Coos Bay OR; Chinook Winds, Lincoln City OR.

South Puget Sound Travel Day Two

Today, we began with breakfast at Bloundie's in Shelton.  Drove up to Potlach and Hoodsport along the Hood Canal. Visited the Skokomish Indian Museum and Cultural Center.  Drove around the area and enjoyed the scenery. Beautiful clear day at Potlach State Park.  I watched 10 people digging for clams.

Mima Mounds, Tumwater, WA

Tumwater, WA

City of Olympia, Washington  Images

Little Creek Resort and Casino in Kamilche

Squaxin Island Museum, Kamilche

Shelton, WA  Images

South Puget Sound, WA

Hood Canal   Images

Skokomish River   Images

Skokomish Indian Cultural Center

Potlach State Park

Hoodsport

South Puget Sound Travel Day One

Today Karen and I drove north from Vancouver up to Olympia, Washington.  We took a drive around the Olympia City area, enjoyed lunch at Anthony's Homeport Olympia restaurant in the Bud Inlet, a drive around Shelton, a visit the Squaxin Island Museum, Library and Research Center, and then check into our hotel room at the Little Creek Resort and Casino in Kamilche. 

Unfortunately, I was under the weather with a cold, sinus pain, coughing, and fatigue.  I needed to rest and sleep all afternoon and evening.

Mima Mounds, Tumwater, WA

Tumwater, WA

City of Olympia, Washington  Images

Little Creek Resort and Casino in Kamilche

Squaxin Island Museum, Library, and Research Center, Kamilche

Shelton, WA  Images

South Puget Sound, WA

Hood Canal   Images

Skokomish River   Images

Skokomish Indian Cultural Center

Potlach State Park

Hoodsport

Leaving the Seashore

Today, I head home to Vancouver from Pacific Beach. I plan to spend a few hours touring the City of Olympia.  

I collect poems, quotes, and sayings about life by the sea: Reflections of Beachcombers.  

Here are a few of my own poetic reflections:

From Slices of Time

The arrow of Time never rests,
    moving forward unrelenting
         irreversible
from hot towards cold
from organized to disorganized
from past to future
from moving towards stillness
from life towards death.
Or, 
so it seems,
    to us,
    with our little particulars in view
    and our social habits a must.
    
The spiderwebs of Time are legion
multitudes of nows of heres;
Uncountable heres and theres 
    unhitched
from any eternal present everywhere.

For a woman at eighty, or a lass of eight,
Time past or present carries different weights.

Haiku by Michael P. Garofalo

Blooms of Spring
flanked by evergreens---
sunshine on stones

the sea
smashed into the shore---
drifting thoughts

the surf wallowed
all in its way─
night and day

cells in my hand
moving the sand─
raindrops washing the sea

rocks of the jetty
slick and cold─
black rockfish gather below

grains of sand
on Graylands' strand─
needles on pines

Olympia, Washington

While on this trip to the Southwest Washington coast I read two books:

I have found the following traveler's reference book to be invaluable while exploring the State of Washington.  It is detailed, specific, thorough, well researched, and highly informative:  
Exploring Washington's Past: A Road Guide to History.  By Ruth Kirk and Carmela Alexander.  Seattle, University of Washington Press, Revised Edition, 1995, detailed index, 543 pages.  

The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, Volume 2, Contemporary Poetry.  Edited by Jahan Ramazani, Richard Ellmann, and Robert O'Clair.  W.W.Norton, Third Edition, 2003, indexes, 1210 pages.

Four Days in Grayland

By Michael P. Garofalo