Continuing with calling the whole area from SeaTac to Everet the Seattle Area I have lumped photographs from a lot of places. I did separate our visits to the Seattle Aquarium, the Botanic Garden, the Japanese Garden, and the Woodland Park Zoo on these other pages. The details about our Great Train Adventure to visit the area are shown on the Washington page.
One of our visits to Seattle proper focused on Chinatown and the Oriental theme with a couple more detailed views of the entry I showed in 2008 below. Lori has may fond memories of Chinatown in San Francisco, California. She really misses the hustle and bustle of these very industrious people on the street but television, cell phones, and other electronics have really changed how communities operate and not always for the best.
Always trust the grandson to find the fire trucks while heading to the Chinatown Playground. You can also trust Orientals to create structure and beauty with glorious color in a very limited space.
The weeds including the home owners bane were probably in our son's front weed garden after a day at Edmonds Beach. He has a very narrow steep slope up to the house which is difficult to tend unless you have a lot of time and a whole lot of agility.
Edmonds Beach included a splash in the water and playing in the sand. It got a little more exciting as our granddaughter wading up to her knees got hit by a rouge wave and well drenched. Resting back at the house Lori gets to play with Chipper otherwise known as Chip-Chip for the black spots on a white coat. In between we also managed to get our driver's license renewed so we are good to go another few years.
There has been a little rearrangment here since we keep coming back to the greater Seattle area. In prior years I had been putting things about the area under Washington since we are mostly north of the actual city in the Lynnwood area but it makes more sense now to keep this part separate.
No visit to Seattle would be complete without seeing Rachel
at the Pike Place Market. On this visit we really got to the Woodland Park Zoo and added a new attraction of the Seattle Aquarium which I have detailed on these other pages. Our primary focus on this trip was the grandkids who unfortunately were not feeling the best so our visits were limited.
For Christmas Lori wanted to make our new grandson Sam a fish toy. Intended to be about 4 inches around and six inches long after it was stuffed the size increased rather dramatically. Sorry I don't have a better picture but after this one movement with the pillow
was constant. They made the house.
After getting settled in Lynnwood one of our first visits was back to Bothel Park to verify the roosters were still running loose.
The primary purpose of this whole excursion to the far reaches of the Northwest was to see our new grandson. Our granddaughter is now slightly older but their focus was mostly on the slides and playground rather than the wildlife.
We also made several trips to the Edmonds Beach Park which has a major marina on Puget Sound. The Pacific is noted for random rouge waves as our granddaughter discovered trying to get her feet wet and not quite escaping a larger incoming wave.
Trying to capture the sunset over Puget Sound was a rather frustrating experience. The Edmonds Beach Park was a good half hour drive in rush hour traffic only to find the clouds which had looked so perfect either disappeared or totally blocked the sun.
The two major areas we just had to visit in downtown Seattle were the Pike Place Market so that Lori could see Rachel the Pig who is much older than her and a fond childhood memory. Lori also has very fond memories of Chinatown and the old men playing their games on the street. Unfortunately they are now inside with air conditioning watching television and the whole character of the area is different.
I am a little surprised that I cannot find any photographs of the Woodland Park Zoo which we make a point to visit with the grandkids each time we are out here. I also do not have any of our traveling across US-2 until we get to Montana which is also somewhat of a surprise. I don't remember if this is another case of missing electrons or I just was too laze to stop along the way.
The primary purpose of this major western excursion was to establish Washington residency after retiring in Ohio and to visit our granddaughter in the Seattle area. Our son had already taken care of the vehicle registrations so we only had to get a new driver's license and set-up new wills and other legal documents under Washington law. We still had plenty of time to visit, attend the Washington State Fair, and go to Woodland Park Zoo.
Enjoying the wonderful late August and early September weather we also took advantage of the many paved trails in the area for both biking and hiking. Near Bothell, Washington there is a flock of wild roosters that just hang out by the trail. We were also in the prime blackberry season with ripe berries along most trails. Like one jogger told my sister You don't have to pick those, you can buy them in the store.
Duh!!
Another favorite location was the Washington Park Arboretum and botanical garden. I'll have a special page for these later but here is a view across Lake Washington toward Kirkland, Washington from Mathews Beach Park just north of the university. Since it was getting late in the season and we needed to get back across the mountains before the snow started and get back to Ohio to help the doctors again we headed southwest across the corner of Oregon and into Idaho.