dolari | Feb. 10th, 2009

Feb. 10th, 2009

I work right next to an old freeway in Downtown Seattle, and everyone in a while on that freeway, I catch a "Scenic Route 4" sign. That's all it says, no directionals, no other signs, nothing. I was intrigued, but I couldn't find any trace of what they were.

Unlike Texas, I can't find an online archive of old maps of Seattle. I've found a few of Washington State, but none of Seattle proper. And none showing any kind of Scenic Route. I could prolly head to the library to find maps, but I just haven't had the time to go go to a library (or find one) and hunt them down.

However, while playing around at work one day, I did manage to find ONE reference to the Scenic Routes of Seattle, which had some mostly undetailed maps and a couple of points of interest marked out. But hey! It was info! http://www.stevemandich.com/2007/01/follow-trident-and-trees.html

Turns out the Scenic Routes are from 1962, part of the World's Fair. It took a while, but I did manage to plot out the routes. In the forty six years since the Scenic Routes were made, so some places are now one-way, others were actually cut off, and according to the site, one route was rerouted after a landslide.

After mapping them out - it was time to actually TAKE a trip down one of the Scenic Drives.

First stop was the University Area of Seattle to pick up

jadaze. I'd been meaning to spend more time with her, but circumstances made it that I couldn't till now. But I like taking trips with her cause she has an eye for pictures like I do. Once loaded, I began the trip...but I realize now I actually took the route backwards. Ooops.

We slowly made our way around the University Area - I was really surprised at how "tight knit" the little town looked. Jade has told me it's gone very downhill recently, but it doens't look run-down (yet). It reminded me a lot of San Francisco - tightly packed, but totally livable. Everything you need right next to each other. It's amazing what you can crunch into a small area. Living in State College and Texas, where there's plenty of room to spread, you learn to appreciate what can be done when you have to "stuff it all together."

We entered into the Montlake Area, again, antoher part that reminded me of the more residential areas of San Francisco. Medium sized houses all crammed tightly on hills, roads winding around sharp curves and steep hills. Very pretty houses, though. I'd kill for a house here. :)

Winding through the Montlake Area, we suddenly came across a park. A great big park with a great big view. We pulled over and got the Cameras out. Oh, man did we get the cameras out:

(2406x240 JPEG, 388k)

Boren Park sits on the egde of a cliff staring out over Lake Washington, and as you can see, has a MASSIVE view of the Cascades. You can't get away from the Cascades around here. On one side of the city, you have the Cascades, the other side, the Olympics. To the North - Mt. Baker, the South, Mt. Rainier. I finally live somplace with REAL moutains. :D

Just a few blocks down the road, we hit Volunteer Park. Jade had mentioned she'd been there several times during Pride Parades, and that there might be a greenhouse up the way. There wasn't just a greenhouse, but a very large wading pool (empty) kid's payground, and large park area, with a Great Big Tree. After fretting a bit about whether we could take pictures inside the Greenhouse (We have to get a permit? Or make an appointment? Oh, we just can't SELL the pics), we went inside.

"Can I help you, buddy?"

As it was starting to get dark, we took off into the Capitol Hill area of town, slowly going into Downtown Seattle, Bell Town, then hitting WA 99. That was a full quarter of this trip, but was mostly un-scenicky. The houses were nice, but the new skyscrapers blocked out most of the view of the Puget Sound, which I'm assuming was the reason for the routing.

WA 99 is really neat, though - there's still a lot of Americana Kitsch there, although VERY hard to get pictures of. WAS 99 there has been turned into an expressway. Fast speed limits, no left turns, but stuff right on your right. Unfortunately I couldn't get any pictures here as by the time we saw something, we whizzed right past. Usually, I have no problem slowing down, especially with Texas Plates - I can always play the dumb out-of-towner, but the drivers were being vicous, so I didn't take any chances.

We entered the Greenlake Area (another one where I couldn't really stop and get pictures), which is a really nice part of town. WA99 hits the lake dead on then veers to the left. We veered to the right, enjoying a nice leisurely drive watching houses on the right, the lake on our left, and a small little commerce area ahead of us.

Turning right, we headed towards Sand Point - we were losing light, but almost done (about 75%) with our trip. This part of the trip was a nice little ride towards Lake Union, all downhill with a gorgeous view the whole way. We meandered through beautiful houses, through the Windemere sections (which Jade mentioned looked EXACTLY like upstate New York (but more than liekly with downtown New York prices). In an attempt to grab pics of the now looming Mt Rainier, we ran around, looking for either really high ground, or really low ground. At one point I managed to get the truck down a hill into someone's driveway - and ended up almost unable to climb what we later found out was a THIRTY PERCENT GRADE. If we hadn't managed gotten out of there, we'd prolly have slid back into Lake Washington.

Running around the area was totally worth it - cause I managed to grab this shot of Mt Rainier:

I'll never get tired of seeing that mountain watching over us.

WE made our way back to the University area, where I said goodbye to Jade (after getting very lost). I decided I was going to have some dinner out at a Sushiland in the area, but got VERY VERY VERY lost for about two hours and actually ended up high on Queen Anne Hill. That's not a hill, that's a damned mountain. Puts Bellefonte, PA, to shame. It was a frustrating night, but I managed to find one spot that made it TOTALLY worth it:

(3072x936 JPEG, 1.72MB)

If you'd like to try the route for yourself, check out this map. It's had some adjusting, but it should be pretty close to the route in the 1962 map: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=115880903835312982774.000461ab5b4010f2ea13f&t=h&z=13