What's Shared With Me

This last Wednesday I was afforded the chance to see some locations around Olympia that were not of my own choosing.  These were sights selected by the professor of my travel class, or by my fellow classmates.  These places were not places I would have thought of to visit for myself, but far be it from me to turn down an opportunity to experience a bit of the world.  That's why this blog is around, isn't it?  To gain a new perspective on the slice of Washington state I inhabit?

All this in the hopes of developing my perspective as a writer, a human being, and a traveler.

Hiking trail between the mounds

We started by visiting the Mima Mounds south of Olympia.  This was Professor Birkenstein's idea, and definitely not a location that would have caught much interest from me had I not been whisked away in a van to see it.  I think the picture I took, after auto corrections that brighten it up, even misleads one into thinking that it was a sunny walk through a green field.

Green the field was, but it was more often sickly and dying, more reminiscent of fall by the cool temperature and the state of decay of the plants.  There were sparse indications of spring, such as the few blooming little flowers occupied by lazy-looking bumblebees, but the ground was uncharacteristically dry and the flora equally parched.

Professor Birkenstein walks the mounds

Off beyond the mounds was an active shooting range (which we were assured was aimed away from the mounds themselves).  The echo of gunshots rang out over this land that is shrouded in some kind of geologic mystery.  Although I can see some potential for interesting information to perhaps come from such a location, there didn't seem to be much anthropological connection between the mounds and any indigenous culture that I could find.  To me, the mounds were nothing short of a curio, and although I do not fault Professor Birkenstein for his own interest in the place (which I hope to ask about later, as I have safely unloaded my bias here) I did not find much attraction to this place at all.

I suppose it is telling how callous I am that I could happily live with myself knowing the Mima Mounds had been turned into a parking lot for the adjacent shooting range.  But then I certainly believe that whatever we do unto nature we shall eventually see nature do unto us.

I found a nice bench to enjoy the view

Leaving Mima Mounds we debated lunch but ended up settling on visiting Tumwater Falls Park in hopes of seeing the Old Brewery.  Although we were not immediately rewarded by this there was certainly much more of interest to me in this park straight off the bus.  A large bridge provided access directly to the river, and the overgrown plants and graffiti, as well as the indications of homeless people inhabiting the area, reminded me very much of the small wilderness areas I explored in the midst of my hometown of South Pasadena as a child.

This place was far more open and accessible to the public than those places were, but also offered less threat of poison oak than my childhood retreats.  There is a particularly attractive quality to me in the urban wilderness.  This is not just a littered, smelly home for transients, but a place in which nature and humanity are trying to co-exist without each others' help.  There is life here, and it is just as harsh and cruel as it would be were it isolated from civilization, and it has just as bright and vibrant a veneer to boast of life's victory over entropy.

 Running along the river at a higher point is a walkway that is made up of grates that cover channel locks.  Visitors to the park can walk along these grates and look down (if they dare!) and see the churning waters flowing through man-made chambers roughly ten feet below them.  Water is an inherently fascinating thing to want to watch, but it is an altogether different situation when the path water takes has been predetermined by some engineer in a lab coat for our amusement.  One might think there is no harmony to this, but as the fictional Ian Malcolm puts it in the 1995 film Jurassic Park, "Life... finds a way."  The water is caged but indefatigable.

Perhaps it is the anger in the churning water that makes people more hesitant to walk on the grates that run along the river's edge.  The sturdiness of the steel is not in question until one observes how fast the water below is moving - and at what a drop!  Who can blame the water for being so angry, too, when we imprison it and tell it where it must go?

Walking on the grates and looking at the water provides a thrill, one I am glad to say I experienced thanks to this trip.  It is not a thrill akin to running with the bulls or white water river rafting, but it is well more than I would have experienced had I been at home.  Furthermore, I played witness to the plight of the water.  The water is, of course, only anthropomorphized in my head; the water needs no pity.  I do spare it some emotion, though, because it is a caged beast demonstrating its strength day after day without need for rest or recuperation.

I wonder if connecting to nature in an urban environment is something common to city-folk like myself.  Not the nature we create for ourselves; not gardens or planters with exotic imported plants.  The nature that happens where we refuse to look until it is overgrown.  In the Mima Mounds, the plants are left to fight each other to the death and the result is rather abysmal.  By contrast, the plants beneath the bridge in Tumwater Falls are left to their own devices and they stand tall and vividly green.  Sure, these are different biomes - but it's the latter that fascinates me because of its rebellious insistence on bright green beauty versus an urban gray and brown.

We did see the old brewery, led there by my intrepid friend Ryan (who tagged along on the trip out of pure personal interest).  We saw some goslings and took pictures of that side of Tumwater Falls park then ran off to find lunch at the Spar in downtown Olympia.  But from a distance the old brewery held little interest to me.  Up close and personal, I'd like to know how much of that real estate has been reclaimed by the plants.  Such investigations are not legal without permit, however, so it seems likely that that expedition is not going to occur in the near future.

Home Base

Everyone needs to start somewhere.  For me, for this class, and for this ambitious project it is Saint Martin's University.  For those first visiting this esteemed campus, they are greeted by beautiful red brickwork and a courtyard walled in by Old Main on one side and the monastery on the other.  The cloistered feeling of the courtyard, as large as it is, is typical of Saint Martin's.  Rather than feeling restricting, it feels quiet and safe; this is a place of focused study and meditation, isolated from the noises of the outside world.

Courtyard at Saint Martin's

This is what I saw when I first visited Saint Martin's, and it contributed in no small way to why I chose to apply here.  As someone who is easily distracted, a focused environment of study is important to me.  Old Main is the largest single building on campus aside from the enormous Marcus Pavilion.  The other buildings are three stories high or less, and spread apart over a small space.

I do not spend a great deal of time in this courtyard anymore, as most of my time on campus is spent in the classroom and then traveling from place to place.  As I am not one of the resident freshmen, I rarely have need to see the fountain that is the center point between the school's administration building and the monastery.

I do, however, spend a fair amount of time in O'Grady Library.  I have made a good number of visits to the school ITS department, mostly for legitimate help with my electronics, but also for the occasional social call.  But the library itself is also a great resource for studying either online or with physical books.  I am struck by the imagery of the huge bible in the foyer as I enter, but I am puzzled by the building's exterior.  It has a modern design, but it appears to have been lifted directly out of a civil construction simulator video game.

+5 Literacy in your town

There is this large open book on the awning over the door.  It's a very good visual identifier that this building is the library, especially since its name is engraved, hidden in the shadows in the headstone above the doors.

In such an august environment, the oversize book seems like a visual gag.  I have never made any inquiries about the book, nor have I asked if any of my fellow students agree with me.  I don't wish to be disrespectful, after all - someone might think it's pretty clever.  In a school full of students learning civil engineering, I think that it would be neat to see some of the cities they built in Sid Meier's SimCity 2000 come to life in the future.  In a sense - I could do without the user-generated tornadoes or fire-breathing lizards crawling up from the oceans that players of that game could summon upon their simulated cities at will.

It is from this almost comically-designed building that I will start on my task of exploring my hometown as a tourist.

I feel like I should clarify that last statement - I am not a native Washingtonian.  In fact, I am from California, originally, from a small town buried in grand Los Angeles.  Military service in the US Army took me from one side of the nation to the other, and I settled here for both personal reasons and career aspirations.  Touring my adopted hometown is likely to open up some new perspectives for me, as my impressions of Olympia have been limited to my own laziness.