The Olympia Inn Hotel

In the morning we were pleased to find that the rain had stopped and that we would not have to build an ark after all. We warmed ourselves with a small cook fire and a hearty breakfast of sausage, scrambled eggs and coffee, then packed up our sodden camp and headed for Olympia.

The band!

Farmers Market Lunch:
Homemade beef and salmon jerky with freshly baked
cheese sticks and local chèvre camembert

It rained again on our ride south, but these were merely showers compared to the night before so we rode on happily without stopping. The skies finally cleared and the sun made its long awaited appearance as we rode into Olympia and we both cheered with delight. We had lunch and coffee at the Farmer’s Market and enjoyed the music of a string duo who were friendly but nearly as unkempt as Sonia and I. We were both eager to get clean and dry so we began looking for a place to stay.

If you are a Canadian motorcyclist afflicted with stubbornness and romanticism, the following may be of some use to you.

How to dry your camping gear when you really should not have been camping in the first place:

Step 1 – Find a sleazy motel from the fifties. (Do not be confused by signs such as the one seen below. This is neither an Inn nor a Hotel. This is a Motel and it is precisely what you are looking for.)

Step 2 – Set up camp inside.

Step 3 – Turn up the heat and crack the windows.

Step 4 – Vacate the premises. (The last step is important if you do not wish to turn into beef jerky, as the room will quickly become like the inside of a smokehouse.)

Olympia Capital Building – Sonia never quite succeeded in getting a
complete shot of the building from the back of a moving vehicle...

It should be noted that there are a few distinct advantages of seeking out an establishment such as the aforementioned motel:

Heaters – Large, American-made, forced air heaters were the standard of that period. Scientists have recently discovered that the hot, arid air emitted by these units is the sole cause of global warming. Use with Caution. As an added bonus our room came with a towel warmer that was more likely to set the place on fire than to warm anything.

Bathtubs – Wash yourself and your gear, preferably not at the same time. Ours had water in - as well as under - the tub. It felt similar to a waterbed, though not quite as much fun.

Nature programs – HBO? Showtime? I don’t think so. Try PBS. Nature programs have a tendency to put everything in perspective; a cheap motel seems like Shangri-La when compared with Siberia and Antarctica.


More to come soon!