WW: Highest dome on the continent

WW: No Kings, Olympia

(US national day of demonstration, 14 June 2025. The photo depicts just the Capitol steps, where the speakers appeared, and maybe half the crowd below. There were about twice that many more on the front lawn and approaches, and maybe that many again on the sidewalks of the city, waving at passing drivers and receiving their honks of support.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

WW: Oyster boat

(Dredging on the high tide.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

WW: Mt. Rainier

(Open in a new tab for a better view.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

WW: Ancient bench

(The city developed a small but interesting walking park here a few years ago, on utilities land it's owned for many decades. Part of it includes a long stretch of lakefront, all of it densely forested. One could believe this shore had never been developed.

Until one stumbles on this ancient park bench in the jungle, now reduced to just the two concrete end supports, its wooden seat long since melted away.

So this is not the first park to be located here, though this property has been wild and overgrown for most of the half-century I've known it.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

WW: Eagle in the jungle

(Probably an immature bald [Haliaeetus leucocephalus].)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

WW: George Bush headstone

(This is the resting place of the first US settler in Thurston County, Washington, one George Bush. No, not that George Bush. This one died [at home, of natural causes] during the American Civil War.

He was also African-American.

But he's most remembered for his legendary generosity, lending food, equipment, draught animals, and seed to subsequent arrivals – often not insisting on repayment. He's a man much commented in the historical record, having literally laid the foundations of his community, and of whom I've yet to encounter a single criticism.

He was also the subject of a concerted [though fortunately unsuccessful] effort to deprive him of his vote and property, based solely on his race.

Beside him lies his wife Isabella, here in Thurston County's first public cemetery – which was established on a parcel of the Bush homestead that they donated for the purpose.)

WW: On the Black River

(Fishing with my nephew. Open in a new window or tab to see it better.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

WW: Summer 2017 vs. Summer 2020

WW: Monks' graveyard

(Brothers' cemetery in the forest behind the Benedictine monastery in my home town. One of my favourite places since childhood. Plus I saw a mountain beaver here today.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

WW: Capitol deer

(Behind the Washington state capitol in Olympia.)

WW: Old brewery, again

(Here it is again: the old Olympia Brewery, aka the most photogenic structure in Thurston County. I believe this sole fact has protected it from being torn down for a century. It has nevertheless begun to crumble on its own, having been unmaintained for nearly a hundred years now, and one wonders how much longer it can survive.

No filtres or Photoshop were used on this shot, by the way. Just a straightforward black and white exposure on a late winter day.)

WW: Neighbourhood deer

WW: What is this?

(One of several found in two wooded parks in my hometown. Hint number one: It's not modern art. Hint number two: it is the sort of thing you'd expect to find on the West Coast.)

WW: Home port

(Open in a new window to see it larger.)

WW: Meditating Christians

(Was walking by the church I grew up in when I saw this sandwich board on the sidewalk outside. Centering Prayer is one of several Christian contemplation movements that are quietly but consistently gaining adherents. For my experiences in another, see this.)

WW: The Blockhouse Wars

(On this site stood one of the first homesteads in the neck of Thurston County, Washington, where I grew up. During the Blockhouse Wars of the 1850s – a string of skirmishes touched off by settler abuse of First Nations treaties – the Eaton place hosted one of the tiny wooden stockades for which the era is named. I'm told the ruins of "Fort Eaton" endured well into the 20th century.

The marker was placed, not by any government organism, but by the Freedom Community, a Christian commune established nearby later in the l9th century. It too succumbed to entropy, but persisted as an ordinary village for decades thereafter.

When I was a kid this monument was all but lost under Scotch broom, baldhip rose, and Garry oak, beside a county highway that began life as the main wagon road between Oregon and Puget Sound. While reading history at university I found the plaque by the ancient oak beside it, which I was told was the local hangin' tree. [Oaks are rare on the North Coast; their presence on the Salish Prairie in great number was and remains much remarked.]

In the decades since someone has cleared a respectable little rest stop around the marker, rendering it much easier to find.)

WW: Cornice

WW: 1812 veteran

(I recently had to correct the Wikipedia entry for George Bush, earliest American settler in the Olympia area, which identified him as "the only 1812 veteran buried in Thurston County". Meet William Rutledge, friend and [still] neighbour of Bush, who arrived soon after. He lies about 10 feet away in the same pioneer graveyard, beneath a memorial placed by the N.S.U.S.D. 1812. [Interestingly, they did not afix such a plaque on Bush's stone, which is still the barely-legible 1863 original.])

WW: FLeetwood 6-8552

(They recently pulled a false front off this old garage and found the original façade still intact underneath it. Note the phone number, which still bears the old alphabetic exchange. And that, for those of you playing at home, is why the gold-record rock group -- all students at Olympia High -- was called that.)