Andrew and I were going to go to LinuxFest Northwest this weekend but we really didn’t want to leave again after just getting home from a two week trip so we canceled but I had found a super cool medicine cabinet on Craigslist and it was up in Seattle. The plan was to pick it up while we were up at the conference. That wasn’t going to work now and Seattle was a pretty far drive just to get a medicine cabinet.  The seller was headed to the coast on Saturday though and was willing to meet us near Olympia. That sounded perfect as that would only be a 1.5 hour drive. Wayne and I could just run up there and come right back home. Andrew had a doctor’s appointment so he stayed home and we hit the road. It was a beautiful drive up. We had moments of fog, rain and bright sunshine over and over as we made our way there. We met the seller and loved the cabinet. We decided to drive into Olympia and get some breakfast. We had never been so it would be fun to check out a new city. I found a nice cooperative cafe with lots of vegan options. They weren’t too busy so we got a table right away. I think we got there just in time though because soon they had a bunch of people waiting. The food came quickly and it was tasty. As we were eating Wayne suggested we go antique shopping. What a great idea! It seemed like a good place to do that and when I looked for nearby antique stores there were several.

We went to the closest one and immediately saw two slipper light fixtures we just loved. The woman who owned the store said they were on commission from a man named Jerry who has a store of his own as well as antiques at a few other vendors. She suggested we go look at all of his fixtures. We went up to his shop which was just a block away. His grumpy old father was manning the shop when we got there and didn’t give us the time of day but Jerry soon showed up and was really nice. We looked at all of the lighting in his store but didn’t see anything we liked as much as the others so he told us where he had more stuff. We made our way down to the other places and found some other inexpensive things we liked but didn’t really find any lights we liked as much. Each time we would go to another store Jerry was either there or showed up shortly after. Apparently we were there during the annual Olympia Art Walk and Jerry is very involved in it so was going from shop to shop all day long. It was nice to have him wherever we went so we could ask him questions! We still didn’t like anything as much as the first two lights though so went back to the first store where we negotiated an excellent price for both fixtures and no tax since we are from Oregon. Jerry was happy and we were happy. We will definitely go back up to Olympia when we are looking for other vintage items for the house.

Wayne and I had been there for the better part of the day and really needed to be heading home so we got on our way but both realized we should go to the bathroom before we got too far down the road. We spotted a Fred Meyer so pulled off the freeway but then saw a Costco where we needed to go anyway. We figured that would save us a Costco trip later. It was an excellent idea. They had everything we were looking for including the two pack of large bottles of Cholula! We loaded up our purchases and continued home. It was a successful day for sure.

Today I learned that Olympia is a really cute city. We will definitely go back and spend more time checking out more than antique stores.