Summer in Olympia is spectacular. Day after day of cool nights, warm mornings, and warm-hot late afternoons. The humidity is low, especially compared to when I previously lived. We had one or two days of 100º F temperature here, but that passed, and since then, the temperatures have been more benign. Some mornings are overcast, but the clouds burn off, and the sky is blazing blue. When I see news reports that much of the US south and southwest is under extreme heat advisories, I am glad to be in the Northwest.
But after week after week of sunshine, do you want to remember the mist and fog of winter? Let's try with these random January and February views around town.
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| Seldom-used rail line to Port of Olympia, next to Dancing Goats Coffee (Jan. 20, 2024) |
This is the track that
comes down Jefferson Street and then makes some minor changes as it heads north to the Port. I think it has not been active for some time because the rails are rusty in stretches where cars do not drive over it. But a Port of Olympia manager told me that this line is officially still in operation.
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| View from the balcony - Swantown Marina and Port of Olympia |
When the sun bursts through in early spring, the light is magical here. The woods glow.
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| Chehalis Western trail near Woodard Bay |
What to do after a long walk exploring and photographing and you need a snack? Go to Bread Peddler for a Café au Lait, a croissant, and some Édith Piaf (aka. "La Môme Piaf"). And I asked: they use butter imported from France.
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| The Bread Peddler, 222 Capitol Way N. |
I took these photographs with my Fuji X-E1 digital camera with various lenses. I set the aspect ration to square to resemble Rolleiflex frames, and usually use the Astia film simulation. The RAW file contains the complete frame, but I rarely now reprocess the RAW file with Photo Ninja or other software. The jpeg files from this little Fuji usually look fine and are as good as I could achieve fooling around with various software packages.
