DAY TEN
When we told our American friends about this roadtrip, a few questioned the worth of travelling to Olympia, WA… Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, et al they could understand, but why on earth would we want to travel to Olympia?
From our perspective, though, we knew Olympia as the bedrock of the ’90s feminist punk movement, the hometown of loads of great music from Sleater Kinney through to Kimya Dawson, and the town where Kurt Cobain wrote Nevermind — surely this place would be worth a visit?
Before embarking on our grunge pilgrimage, though, we needed some sustenance so we stopped at Wagner’s European bakery for some Cinnamon Bread and some salted caramel lattes.
Walking around the town, we enjoyed the peculiarly American eccentricities of Olympia. This is the kind of place that advertises ‘Free Alchemy classes’ in their druid emporiums, and offers many weird and wonderful items in their thrift stores and antique shops.
Without any major tourist spots to guide our itinerary, we wandered around the town and happened upon some interesting places like the Olympia-Rafah Solidarity Mural — a 100 foot collaborative artwork that we later learned was put together in an attempt to build a sister relationship between Olympia, WA and Rafah in the Gaza Strip.
We hadn’t found much evidence of the 90s alternative culture scene, though — at least until we happened upon the gift shop Archibald Sisters and the coffee house Burial Grounds.
We had been sorry to miss out on visiting Archie McPhee’s shop in Seattle so we were really pleased to discover Archibald Sisters — a place that is similarly packed with bizarre and kitsch things to buy — so we loaded up on pink flamingo chopsticks (Tropsticks), unicorn corn holders, tentacle pens, and other items essential to an enjoyable honeymoon.
Burial Grounds was similarly lots of fun — a zombie coffee shop serving up an extensive menu of themed drinks. Sipping on our Zombie Attacker (Double shot, almond and nutmeg – Cai) and Rigor Mortis (Double shot, chocolate, peanut butter, caramel – Iain), we knew we had found somewhere pretty special.
After a meal at the hip Mexican joint ‘Quality Burrito’, we headed back to the Tiny House so that we could take an evening stroll on the beach.
Sitting and watching the sunset together on our own private piece of the Washington coast, we knew that our trip to Olympia had definitely been worth it.
