Olympia… It is the capital of Washington, and reminds me of Denton, TX… which to me, epitomizes quaintness.

We kicked off the morning by copying this set of directions (longest to date!) from the side of the trailer—they wouldn’t even fit on our dry erase inside the van.

Long directions

Although the directions were full of turns, the ride itself was absolutely gorgeous. I notice that Washington is a much greener than its more southern states. Long time Washingtonians attribute this thriving flora to the insistent drizzle which occurs nine of the twelve months. Just look at the glory of this:

Early morning ride

Mt Rainier

Aside from beautiful scenery, we often ride upon unintentionally funny things courtesy of our Sag drivers. Like this:

Thanks to these wonderful turn by turn directions, we eventually made it to the Olympia’s Episcopalian church, where we were welcomed with ice cold Gatorades and freshly prepared turkey and ham sandwiches. Thanks Jan!!!

I have set my rainbow in the sky @ Church

Today, we knew we had to get in relatively early b/c Texas 4000 was to be featured in the Olympia Parade. We ended up coming in earlier than we had planned, so to kill some time, we decided to settle the dispute about Texas Crew bags being over the 1’ x 1’ x 3’ limit for all of our duffels going into the trailer. McMillin promptly whipped out his tape measure.

Ruling? Texas Crew bags are NOT 12” x 12” x 24”

After this, we headed out to the parade where we passed by some amazing sights. Apparently, this parade is a big tradition for Olympians and is an opportunity for neighboring towns and districts to come out and represent. We met a number of pageant queens from different high schools all representing their city on her own community’s float. The parade was actually a lot of fun, and we got to mess around quite a bit as well. The theme was bears (no joke).

T4k Hook’em

Sarah flipping with kid gymnasts

A real Shetland pony! – with me, Sheila, Sarah, Lance

Winnie the longhorn

A snapshot of the parade

Team after the parade

The capital building of Washington

This city is absolutely lovely (at least in the sunshine)—love it! Tomorrow we venture forward to Seattle—where there is supposedly a coffee shop on every corner. Until then!