Planes, Trains, and Automobiles to Tacoma

Tacoma, WA. Fri, 3 Sep 2021, 1:00am

This evening was a process of planes, trains and automobiles. Well, no trains this time; that's just part of the set phrase. A friendly neighbor drove us to San Jose airport. From there we flew to Seattle, rented a car, and drove 21 miles to Tacoma. You might recognize Tacoma from the name of Seattle's airport. Tacoma is the "Tac" in Sea-Tac.

Schedules tonight have been only slightly delayed. Our flight departed 15 minutes late mostly because a passenger across the aisle from me was having a panic attack about flying. She tried to leave the aircraft a few times, getting as far as the jet bridge before her husband berated her into coming back. After the bridge pulled back she started asking the crew to be allowed off, and her husband went into a full-blown handing her of her ass. I don't know what was said because it was in a foreign language, but his tone was clear. Remarkable she did not seem to be rattled by his belittling her but she was steadfast in wanting to leave. The crew radioed to have the jet bridge brought back, and the two adults and their young child scuttled off the plane.

Despite the delay getting off the blocks at SJC we arrived at SEA pretty much on time. The airlines pad the schedules to allow for little delays like that occurring. Once at SEA, though, there were more delays. The airport was kind of a mad-house considering it was 11pm already. Many outbound flights were delayed and were still boarding even as an army of janitors was coming out and trying to clean the floors under everyone's feet.

The car rental depot was little better. First, there was a long line to board a bus to the depot. At least the driver was very methodical in boarding the maximum number of people and their bags. All the rental agency counters were teeming with tired customers. Fortunately my elite status with one meant that I had already selected my car via the app. I skipped the lines, walked straight to my car, found the keys inside, and drove toward the exit gate.

Our hotel in Tacoma is only 22 miles from SEA airport. We took a break in the middle of the drive, though, to get late-night snacks. We were hungry!

We reached our hotel in downtown Tacoma around 12:15am. That was later than I hoped but not badly so. Now it's going on 1am and we're still winding down for the night. Those snacks we bought an hour ago (sugar + caffeine FTW!) certainly aren't helping. 😅

Although Tacoma is our destination for the night it's only a way station on our trip. Tomorrow we'll continue out to the Olympic Peninsula to start a four day visit to Olympic National Park. We're looking forward to it! Too bad the weather forecast is cool weather and clouds all weekend.

Beer, Electricity, and Waterfalls

Olympic Peninsula Travelog #2
Tumwater, WA - Fri, 3 Sep 2021. 10:30am.

We got off to a later start on our first full day of visiting the Olympic Peninsula than I intended this morning. It was reasonable, though, given the late hour we arrived last night. I swatted the snooze button several times and roused from bed only at 8. By 9 we were underway.

Our first stop of the day was not that far away, in Tumwater, next to Olympia, the capital of Washington. We visited Tumwater Falls at Brewery Park, a quiet little park with walking trails near downtown.



Tumwater Falls is actually a series of small falls on the Deschutes River. Together they fall 82'. The falls were key to the first American settlement in this area. In the 1840s settlers built a gristmill and a sawmill to harness the water power. By the 1870s several more mills were constructed. In 1890 the first hydropower plant was built to generate electricity. The dam pictured above is at upper falls and was constructed in 1904 to help channel water for a bigger generation plant.

Gristmills, sawmills, and power plants aren't the only things that were built by these falls. German immigrant Leopold Schmidt built a successful brewery here in 1896. The modern(ish) analog didn't occur to me until half through my walk, though, when I saw a vintage sign bearing the slogan, "It's the Water".



"It's the Water". That jogged my memory. I remember buying beer under that slogan— and my friends and I all making fun of it— when I was a college student. You see, Schmidt's didn't name his product Tumwater Beer, he named it Olympia Beer.



Well, Olympia Beer is no more. Ownership changed hands in the 1980s, then twice in the 1990s, then at least once more since... and the latest owner stopped brewing and selling it in January this year. But the falls and the footbridge in that vintage advertisement are still here!

BTW, my college classmates and I made fun of Olympia Beer because it was one of the cheap brands out there and had a flavor to match. "It's the water"... yeah, it was bad water! It's probably unfair to blame the actual water, though. The conglomerate that bought out the Schmidt family operation apparently cheapened the production, turning what had been considered a great local beer for many years into nationally distributed plonk.