Walking Seattle Again

Today's walk started cloudy but ended sunny as I walked from the Wedgwood Neighborhood to Matthews Beach . I remember when Wedgwood was a modest neighborhood where a buyer could find a small starter home. Some streets still look almost as they did years ago but many small homes have been replaced by expensive new home. Some one story homes now have three story homes looking down into their backyards. Sometimes, the older homes are replaced by multiple homes. 35th Avenue NE and NE 95th Street was the northwestern-most point of today's walk. On the southwest corner I spotted a tidy apartment building with a hair salon and a chiropractic practice on the first floor. I don't think the hair salon was there 12 years ago. Northeast Veterinary Hospital  is still on the northwest corner and Johnson's Auto Repair is still on the southeast corner but Johnson's now also owns the Spirit Gas Station on the northeast corner. Wong's Restaurant, next to Johnson's has closed...

 The sun was shining as I walked today and, at times, it felt more as if I were in the country than in a large city. This beautiful weeping willow tree really sets a mood. My walk was to start and end near Jeff's Auto Repair shop (NE 97th Street and Sand Point Way) where I noted the reader board. The current witticism did not hit home with me as much as a recent one. It was something like, "It's weird being the same age as old people." Walking along 97th to 45th Avenue NE, I spotted Thornton Creek and a Little Free Library that contained novels, children's book and a few National Geographics. 45th curved into 105th which I took to 39th. Walking north, I came to Thornton Creek again. At 110th, I walked west to 38th and turned north. I passed a Second Annual Scare Share (Sept 23 -30). Drop off you gently used Halloween items & look for new-to-you treasures. Everything is free! Then I saw a compass painted on a traffic circle and another Little Free Library wit...

  A light drizzle added to the enjoyment of today's walk in Lake City. It hasn't rained in quite a while and the change was nice. I started out at NE 145th Street and 35th Avenue NE. Across 145th in Lake Forest Park, I noted that the large 12 Degrees North Development had been completed. Walking west on 145th, I saw that a number of shops in the small strip mall on the northwest corner of Lake City Way were empty. At 27th Avenue NE, I turned south and spotted a Little Free Library; it contained mostly children's books. Next I came to The Seed and Sharing Shack. At 143rd, I walked east and headed back to Lake City Way. The walk included most of the streets between 27th Avenue NE and Lake City Way from 137th to 145th. I had not expected to find many tree-lined streets and well kept single family home still existing in this area but was pleasantly surprised many times, especially when walking down dead end streets. The large apartment houses, now typical for this neighborhood,...

  The smell of smoke was in the air and there was a haze in the sky during today's walk which touched the northeastern-most point of Seattle. I was back in Cedar Park, walking the winding streets overlooking Lake Washington. Views of the lake kept popping up as did ... ... views of a ravine. I noticed a Proposed Land Use Action for a house to be built on the top of a ravine. This house will probably replace a pretty good blackberry patch. That is one thing about Seattle that has been changing for years - there are fewer and fewer good blackberry patches. My walk started and ended in Seattle but took me a few blocks into Lake Forest Park. Walking down hill, I came to the Burke Gilman Trail a few blocks north of the city limit. There was a fence on the east side of the trail until I hit Seattle where it abruptly ended. A sign welcomed me back to Seattle. During this walk, I had noticed large, new or renovated homes in the hills, along the trail and along the lakeshore. My 1.9 mile wa...

Another beautiful autumn day found us walking from Matthews Beach Park into Inverness and back to the park again. We started out walking southwest along the Burke Gilman Trail . Shortly after crossing over Sand Point Way, there is an exit from the west side of the trail onto NE 93rd and NE 94th Streets.  We walked west on 93rd to 45th Avenue NE then walked south on 45th, crossing a ravine. Along the way, we spotted an Open House (something we haven't seen often during covid), a Little Free Library which contained an assortment of paperbacks, a Bible and some Bible related publications. 92nd Street is a dead end but walking down it, we reached 46th Avenue where we spotted an entrance onto the Burke Gilman Trail. Back on 45th, we walked to Paisley Drive NE, in and out of Paisley Place, back along Paisley Drive to Inverness Drive which we took down to Sand Point Way. This area has not changed much in the last 12 years. It is still well kept with underground utilities and sidewalks an...