I got a good 2-3 years out of the Michelin blades from Costco, and live in the Pacific Northwest 🌧️

Did this with all my past residences. 45 bucks from Oregon.

Does it jiggle jiggle, or fold?

That might’ve been the park. There’s a house next door with signage the residents erected, explaining it was never Kurt Cobain’s house, but helpfully explains where one can find it.

Hey thanks for the award! I’m convinced any town can be a nice town so long as there’s a halfway decent brewery.

Yep. There’s the Kurt Cobain park which you learn pretty quick on your first visit, does not have any municipal funding. Far as I can tell, it’s just a few volunteers that keep it up. It’s a bridge over the Wishkah, a burned up lawn chair, some graffiti and dog turds. I feel like Kurt would’ve wanted it this way. Doesn’t need an interpretive center - the site itself does all the talking.

I’m told there’s also a mural of the band somewhere, but I fear it’s been painted over because I sure haven’t found it.

What was the spot you stumbled on @Hopsblues?

Sometimes there’s sun, it’s true! Nothing like rolling down the hospital hill and watching the sun set over this down-but-not-out timber town. Lots of people pass through for the beach or the Olympic Peninsula, and all they see from their car window is run down, often vacant store fronts, and junkies a-junkin’. But friend, I’m here to tell you this town has heart.

Two solid breweries, Steam Donkey and Mount Olympus Brewing, along with Hoquiam Brewing the next town over. They all host community events including cribbage, trivia, and legit talented live musicians.

Breakwater Seafood has good crab melts, Billy’s and Boxcar for burgers. Salvadorena for papusas, great sushi and yakisoba at Samurai. Go Get the Pho, despite breaking most of Ali Wong’s rules for naming Vietnamese restaurants, delivers banh mi and noodle soup that’s right on par with the food I ate in Hanoi and HCMC.

The good folks working at these places are super friendly with zero pretentiousness.

Lots of local lore is this Town of Missing Men, like the early 20th century serial killer Billy “Ghoul” Gohl who used to drop his victims (140, it’s said) into the Wishkah River through a trap door in what’s now Breakwater. The eponymous restaurant Billy’s keeps his strange story alive with old photos and documents. Spooky shit. Bring on the true crime podcasters.

The whole Nirvana thing is… muddled. It’s strange to see this city embracing their native son when 1. Kurt Cobain loathed this area and the angst of his lyrics reflect that and 2. He wasn’t actually born here. He was born and largely raised elsewhere around Grays Harbor County. He attended high school here briefly, dropped out, and started a band. But it was here that he met Kris Novoselic and King Buzzo of Melvins fame. And there is something about being here and feeling the primordial pulse of the music scene that grew up between here and Olympia in the last 30 years. Drop by Eargasm Records, the owner of that place will tell you some stories.

There are nicer, probably safer places to spend a night, and good luck finding a decent coffee shop open past 3, and yeah the meth, and also we can’t seem to elect anyone who knows how to fix any of this, but there are lots of folks here who work daily to make this a nicer place to live and you should pop in for a beer sometime.

Hadn’t realized the Empire Builder passes through there. Is the town pretty walkable from Icicle Station? This sounds like a good option if we wanted to do an overnight trip from South Sound.

I can’t argue that, I just read the online editions. The Olympian runs a half dozen decent stories of local import each day, but yeah the rest is clickbait content from their parent company. My local paper primarily runs high school sports, letters to ed, and maybe 1-2 items from city council meetings.

I noticed! I only found out when I drove by the strikers in Raymond. Went home, did some googling, and aside from a month-old local tv news spot, there’s been ZERO mainstream coverage.

I find it especially surprising none of the state or local papers are covering this. they usually have more room editorially to dive deep into local interest stories.

I don’t want to turn this into dogpile on regional journalism; I’m pretty grateful for the job journalists do. But they really missed the beat on this one.