It's the water.... and a lot more

This is one of the claims to fame of my hometown...this and Sleater-Kinney and Curt Cobain spent some time here...I never saw them, or I didn't know them at the time. They would have been scruffy teenangsters in plaid shirts and Chuck Taylors held together with duct tape....just like me. Actually, I guess, they would have been pre-teenangsters when I was hanging out downtown. But the brewery, now....now that I do remember. I remember the smell of warm hops permeating my childhood and the 4 o'clock whistle blowing everyday. I remember taking countless tours in the summers when it was hot outside and walking into the cold storage room in shorts and a teeshirt, breath fogging, goosebumps rising. And the tasting room at the end of the tour where those of us under age 21 got Pepsi served to us in tiny plastic cups instead of Olympia beer. Giant copper tanks that shined. Row upon row of kegs waiting to be filled and shipped. It's all gone now, except for the empty buildings. Even the whistle.
The park is still here(that building is the brewery)...Tumwater Falls Park. It may be one of my favorite places on earth. It's not that big but it sure packs a punch. I visit every time I'm home. It is one of my oldest and dearest friends. Do you all have a place like this?

I am going to tell you a secret now...don't tell my mom because she would be mad. When I was a kid, little, like starting age 6 or so, I used to ride my bike out here to this park with my backpack stuffed with toys. It was at least 3 miles, through busy intersections along a major roadway...alone. I would spend hours there on a sunny day and then bike home. She always thought I was around the apartment complex where we lived or in the fields behind us. Sometimes I rode all the way into downtown Olympia to go to my favorite bookstore...but mostly I rode here.

In the summer, the river is not nearly so raging, and you can see the old fish ladders that are still in use in the right season.

Isn't it beautiful here? Okay, now, imagine summer and the river is a bit lazy...not this foaming monster. We used to swim here in childhood. It was frowned upon but not against the law. Now there are signs posted everywhere stating you cannot swim here. Then, on a hot summer day, my mom and her boyfriend would bring us here and we could sit on warm rocks and swim in the quiet spots. Maybe it wasn't the safest thing, but I treasure those memories...this is my river.

This was the original brewery established in 1896. It is a beautiful old building, also empty and falling deeper into disrepair every year. I don't understand how Olympia lets it's own memories collapse. It is frustrating.
It's a landmark of this town...

This is at the lower falls, but I couldn't take a picture of the falls because it was throwing so much mist up that it would have soaked the camera. It was raging. I went and stood in that cold mist, as I have done a thousand times before. It is an embrace that I cannot describe...my welcome home.

This is the bridge over the lower falls...take a good look now, since I can't show the falls proper.

This is that bridge on an old Oly label. See those falls? In our teenangst years(once again, without parental knowledge), when we were INVINCIBLE(...you remember those times, don't you?), we used to jump these falls. One of my friends actually jumped from the bridge! Yes, he made it every time. The pool at the base of these falls is deep, deep, deep.
Once I got caught in the river current and was slammed into a few rocks... but it didn't keep me from going back for more.

I can't get enough of this park...

...but these more sedate years, a quiet meander around will do it for me.

Although the roar of the falls and feel of that mist settling still gives me a rush that reminds me of Invincibility...and the thrill is still there.