Olympia, Washington

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Old and young hippies hanging out among the earth and animal friendly paradise in the Northwest. Veggie restaurants abound.

Now a huge bedroom community, this city has grown quite large.

0 thoughts on “Olympia, Washington”

  1. I lived in OLY from 1988-1998. Watched the rent up on houses go from $200 a month to $900 as more and more kids filtered in from across the country. Bar none, the most beautiful, peaceful place I have ever lived. Better if you have a secure job waiting for you, a marketable skill or plans to open your own business. Unemployment is a real problem there. It’s the ONLY reason why I left:( Unless, of course you are of college age and have a nice financial aid package at Evergreen to pay the bills. Otherwise, you’ll be competing for minimum wage jobs pulling shots or serving beer with those already graduated who cannot bring themselves to leave town for better jobs up north in Seattle or down south in Portland.

    It’s a city full of folks who don’t want to grow up. Perhaps that’s why it’s so charming. I always heard fellow Washingtonians say Bellingham has “the curse”
    (lived there too), but don’t believe them. You’ll not leave Olympia without a great deal of will power and effort.

    Smithfield, IPU where have you gone!;(

  2. I grew up in Oly living there from birth in ’53 until ’77 (with a few short moves around the country) and remember when Sleater Kinney was just a road (barely paved!) and not a bunch of people making music (of sorts). In high school in ’69 or ’70 three (sometimes 4 or 5) lived in an apartment above a garage paying a “rent” of about 4 hours of gardening a week! We had the “Third Eye”, Atlantis Peace Shop and Dinosaur Valley, Lighter than Air Faire and other “hippy” things, but it wasn’t a “hippy” place to live – it was just life the way some of us chose to live it.
    Now days when I go back to visit it is VERY retro-hippy – Oly the way some of us may remember it if we were experiencing an alternative reality. It isn’t bad, just different, and it can still be enjoyed.
    My daughter has decided to go to Evergreen when she graduates in just over a year. Without too much concious pushing from her parents this is the direction she is heading – very self-assured, very socially aware and active, very ecologically minded – in short, she is quite like I would have liked to have been in my teen years. Yes, I was a “hippy” as it is now defined, and I am considered an “old hippy” by many because I still have many of the same beliefs while my activities have conformed a bit to some of the social guidelines of “the establishment, but I still attend/organize anti-war rallys, demonstrate for social causes, educate to “alternative” viewpoints, and I think I could still fit into a part of the “hippy” scene in Oly. But I doubt I would ever move back. It is too big and too money-oriented. I choose small towns, a few acres, my donkeys and rural atmospheres.
    Thanks for the trip! 🙂

    Peace,
    Me

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