dolari | Would you like a tranquilizer?

I know everyone would like some news about the engagement, but this post comes first.

Monday, February 24

The third of the four Seattle Scenic Drives took us (Erin and myself) to the Southeastern portion of Seattle, through the Atlantic neighborhoods and Southwestern shore of Lake Washington. We found a small park with a gorgeous view of Seattle to our west.

Seattle from the West, 5940x2264 3.6MB

While it was a gorgeous view, it overhangs a cliff...and they put down a floor grating so you could see under you. One glance down, and my survival instincts kicked in, and, well, I moved away, quickly.

We got back in the truck, driving slowly down the hills and bluffs above the coastkline past the Mt Baker School and into the incredibly expensive houses of Ridgeway Place, including this one whose roof has too much yeast and will prolly need to be remade.

We continued down through Columbia City, into South Seattle, Holly Park, South Beacon Hill and Sunlap Park. As much as I love these scenic drives, this one has either changed too much since 1963, or simply has gone downhill. Most of this was just urbany-suburbia for most of the trip till we got back to the Lake Washington coast. There just wasn't much scenicky about it, so there weren't many pictures.

Things picked up when we got back to the coast at Seward Park:

The Ends of the Rainbow, 5588x2284, 3.2MB

Japanese Stone Garden, 7272x2155, 9.9MB

We slid along the coast of Lake Washington, coming up above the I-90 floating bridges, looking back at Bellevue. There's a little park up there, just above the Freeway entrance tunnels:

By this time, the sky was getting dark, and we were qwuickly losing any good light to take pics. Sad really, because the best parts of the drive came right up here - Coleman Park, Frink Park, LEschi Park, and the Washington Park Arboreutum. My god. Back in the day, all this area was actual honest to goodness rainforest.

These four parks are still incredibly pristine parks, full of long tall thickly forested trees. We're talking driving through Endor here. There wasn't enough light to take good pics, though. I'll have to tour these parks later in the day. In fact, doing these scenic drives AGAIN in the summer when there's more light is on my agenda.

We made our way back to Volunteer park where it was much too dark to continue the trip. There wasn't much left, but downtown, so we decided to head back to Erins for dinner. But not after one last pic: