The Washington State capitol in Olympia has gorgeous grounds , gardens, fountains and statues.
We were not permitted into the Senate floor or into the gallery today. The House Gallery was open though.
The interior walls are primarily white and black marble. There is a lot of outside light used to illuminate the interior.
There is a variety of ornate craft work in the walls, the ceilings, and the dome.
The tour guide told an interesting story about the State of Washington. The original request was to name the state Columbia after the Columbia River. The federal reviewers of the request thought that would be confused with the District of Columbia so they suggested Washington as the name for the state instead.
Why was Washington less confusing than Columbia?
The outside doors have very detailed metalwork depicting the different parts of Washington State. Here are photos of a few.
The Capitol Building has a classical design. The Legislative Modular Building is opposite the front of the Capitol. The legislative offices are housed there.
In the afternoon, we began our tour of Olympic National Park. We hiked the Staircase Rapids Trail. It followed the North Fork of the Skokomish River. We saw waterfalls, cascades, and lots of white water as we hiked along the river. We also some of the rainforests of Olympic National Park.
Our drive from Staircase rapids to Port Angeles Washington was an adventure. Google sent us on dirt roads through the park. We lost count of how many times a road was not where it was supposed to be and how many times we were “rerouted”. It was both fun and a little scary to be in the middle of a forest on dirt roads with poor directions being spouted by Google.
Fortunately, we use offline maps and the National Park app as back ups. Using all of our electronic resources, and some monitoring to determine we were generally headed north, was comforting. So was a full tank of gas. We did finally make it to Port Angeles.
We walked form our hotel to a local seafood restaurant. We saw several large murals in the city. We also got to walk down and then back up the equivalent of an eight story building on our walk. You can see some of the stairs in the third picture.
The first mural is a painting of a historic ferry that used to run from Port Angeles to Canada across the bay. The restaurant where we ate had a great view of the bay and Canada.
