A fun, historic place to walk by. Beautiful architecture. There was not much information posted…read moreabout the history, but still enjoyable.

This is also called OSPI: Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. Directly…read moreacross the street from Sylvester Park. If you still can't find this place because the GPS told you I that you arrived in the middle of the street near the farmer's market, look for Hotel Olympian Barber and Styling Shop and then you will see it. Ring the doorbell on the castle and they will let you in. Friendly folks.

How bizarre to review a business park, huh? Except that this business park contains the remains of…read morea never-completed nuclear power plant, most notably the two massive cooling towers associated with a traditional power plant. While the Hanford Site in Eastern Washington was instrumental to the Manhattan Project, there is a noticeable lack of nuclear energy projects in the Pacific Northwest (with only two active reactors that I know of- at said Hanford Site, and the student run reactor at Reed College in Portland, Oregon.) Trojan Nuclear Power Plant in Oregon has been closed for many years and it's distinctive cooling tower was demolished back in 2006- so where can you go for some photo shoots and pseudo-urban exploration? Well, Satsop is within daily driving distance from Seattle and Portland and considering the price (free,) it is well worth stopping by.

A short 13 minute detour off the highway on our way to Ocean Shores. Pretty cool to see the…read moreabandoned (unfinished) nuclear power plants up close - even though they are a gentle reminder of the government wasting more of our hard earned money. A few side items to note - the business park has hundreds (I mean hundreds) of brand new Volkswagens waiting for their forever home, so feel free to look around. BUT don't look too closely because there is a security guard with a lead foot who loves to mad-dog you from the comfort of the front seat of his Ford Focus (1989 - 92 model). There is also a huge boring machine on site which begs the question - are there tunnels below these nuclear structures and if so did the forgiving tax payers of the beautiful Pacific Northwest pay for this rusting eye sore? In any event - the power plants are pretty cool to see.

Very photogenic. Beautiful 1890s historic Queen Anne Victorian. Great architecture. Worth taking…read morea look at and snapping some pictures.

Part of the exhibit…read more The Castle Rock Exhibit Hall, dedicated on the 10th anniversary of the eruption of Mt. St.Helens, is one of North Cowlitz County's featured attractions for visitors. Operated by the nonprofit Castle Rock Exhibit Hall Society, the facility has three galleries of exhibits, displays and photographs portraying the area's history and culture. Those exhibits include Cowlitz Indian artifacts, logging carvings, sawmilling, logging displays, a Smithsonian Institution exhibit depicting the Mt. St. Helens blast zone, pre-eruption and post eruption pictures of the mountain and Spirit Lake, and other exhibits. The Exhibit Hall also includes a demonstration area that hosts annual quilt shows, holiday wreathmaking and other events, and a small store featuring books by several local residents among its merchandise. In the front of the building is a Castle Rock Chamber of Commerce Visitors Center that provides tourists brochures, maps and information about Mt. St. Helens and other Washington and Oregon tourist attractions. A historic city jail built in 1907 is located on city property behind the Exhibit Hall. Murals featuring Mt. St. Helens and Spirit Lake, a logging train and a Sternwheeler water vessel grace exterior walls of three buildings near the Exhibit Hall. Visitors may tour the historic city jail, which has been unused since the mid 1940's.

The capital state forest is a huge state forest by any measure. It's geared towards recreation and…read moreconveniently positioned just south of Olympia. The best set of mountain bike trails are 15 minutes drive into the forest. My wife and I explored them once on foot and were only able to see a small segment. There were a fair number of mountain bikers enjoying the trails. The drive to the trail is part pavement, part dirt. As you drive along a dirt ridge and start to think that you are lost, it actually means you're getting close. There are a handful of other trail networks surrounding the state forest, but these seem to be focused for off-road motorcycle use. I wouldn't use them on busy weekends but they are great hiking trails on a weekday evening. Off-road motorcycling seems to be a gear intensive sport and not one easily managed quickly after work. A late summer hike might get dusty, but the views get progressively better the farther you go up. Also, these trails only appear manageable for experienced motorcyclists. That might be another reason I only saw one motorcycle at the beginning flat section and none farther up. There is one mountain biking trail network on the northern side of the state forest near the road. Unfortunately, it is downhill only. I huffed and puffed my way up part of it and was passed by a group of mountain bikers heading up together with their bikes in a pickup truck. This seemed to be the best method. I slowly walked down on the intermediate trail to test the difficulty and confirmed that it was beyond my ability. The trails in Washington generally skew towards the higher end of the difficulty level, probably because the mountains are so steep.

Dear God!!!! Camped at Margaret Mackenney campground in capital Forest where if you have a…read moreDiscover pass keep this in mind for later, you can stay for a total of seven nights for free so that's a great resource and I really appreciate it and I do have a Discover pass and I am staying here for four nights on my way to somewhere else. that being said, the other people camped here most of them are being very loud blasting all different kinds of music that you can literally hear clear on the other side of the campground, I have that going on three sides of me, one of the groups of people have five or six dogs who keep getting in big fights with each other and then trying to attack other dogs as they're walking past with their owners. Kids in the campsite next to me were up half the night, talking really loud and I could hear them from INSIDE my hard sided camper. There's a guy in a battered minivan with plastic for windows camped across from me that looks like he's selling drugs because other people have pulled up and he got out and they exchanged something and then the other people went on their way right away so there's that shady aspect going on. And there are people driving through here all night long!!! if I did not have a hard sided camper, I would not be able to stay here due to the noise at night, especially. This could be such a peaceful place if people would respect it. And the other thing is the camp host? Here is so deaf that he cannot even tell what you're saying to him, I tried to talk to him and he kept saying what??? so good luck with the Campos being able to hear if people are causing noise and fractions. What a joke. and by the way, there are people camping here without a Discover pass. Tons of young people with kids, this is the kind of place where trailer trash lowlifes come with her numerous kids to teach the next hopeless generation of little snot nose, assholes how to camp. And I'm very nice positive person the fast majority of the time it takes a lot to get me in this kind of mood, would not stay here if I were you.

Absolutely the best water on the planet!!! I fill the trunk up with the water that comes from this…read morepipe. It is free-flowing & cold right from the ground. There used to be 57 wells that came from the depths. Everyone that lives in and around the Oly area should drink this water, even when it was just a metal pipe coming straight out of the ground. Bring your own plastic or glass jugs, fill them up and enjoy. Sometimes it's a wait, sometimes you pull up and go. It's well worth it. Now you get to see the pretty tiles and visit the nice people that call this home.

What a cool thing to have right in the middle of the town! There's a nice parking lot a few feet…read moreaway from the well, so it's easy for people to fill up multiple jugs of water and load them up into their vehicles. The water comes out from a pipe and empties into a metal grate so there's no pooled water to worry about. It wasn't busy when I went, and so I just took a sip from the stream of water coming out. It was cold, refreshing, and slightly metallic tasting. Not too bad. There are advisories to not boil the water as it was tested and noted to have high levels of manganese, which boiling would concentrate and potentially cause health issues if consumed in large amounts.

Just a PSA for people like me who are visiting Aberdeen and think the ship will be where it is…read moremarked on the map. The address is just for the home port of the Lady Washington and it travels around many months out of the year on the West Coast. Don't be like me and drive around the port for 10 minutes looking for a ship that isn't there! You can check https://historicalseaport.org/to see it's current sailing schedule. Would love to see in person one day.

The Lady Washington is a 20th century replica of the original 18th century ship. Chances are that…read moreyou've seen this ship in one of her film appearances: - The Interceptor in the film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl - The Enterprise in Star Trek Generations - Captain Hook's ship on Once Upon a Time While the Star Trek Holodeck Arch is long gone, it was still a thrill to board this tall ship and imagine what nautical travel must have been like in the 18th century when the Lady became the first American ship to make landfall on the West coast of North America & the first American ship to travel to Honolulu and Japan. If you ever get a chance to tour or sail aboard this tall ship do it! "Computer, remove the plank!"

I enjoyed seeing the capitol building. The grounds are nice as well. There is no charge to walk…read morearound and there are some beautiful areas to see. It appears to be a favorite spot for weddings as well as we saw one in progress and 2 other groups having pictures taken. The interior is very pretty and I especially liked some of the lighting and sculptures. We didn't go inside the rooms but could see the reception room from outside. There are photos by the gift shop that shows the stages of building it which was interesting to see. The gift shop was very nice with memorabilia form Olympia, books, dishtowels, tshirts, hats, and various gifts. Though I didn't buy anything, I enjoyed looking around.

Decided to take a walk around the state capitol the other day, and everything is maintained well…read more We noticed that they were doing some construction on a few of the buildings, but even with that, the area gave off a peaceful atmosphere. We went inside the Legislative building, and we were greeted right away. We didn't have a tour appointment set up, but a worker named Terry insisted he take us on a quick tour around the building. He was very knowledgable and told us details like where the marble was from, where they got chandeliers, and even how many light bulbs were on the chandelier. He informed us on how the House of Representatives and the Senators house agree on a bill. It was a very information packed tour which we greatly appreciated. I would highly recommend taking a walk around the capitol and taking a tour of the inside. Definitely recommend visiting this place!