Or - Two for the Road...
The day started off dull and dreary...a mostly typical Seattle kind of a day. Oh, it was cool, too. In other words, a perfect day for lazing about, getting the laundry done and then going for a walk in the afternoon.
Which is, coincidently, exactly what we did.
Oh, I do so love going to the Laundromat. Hahahaha, it is soooo much fun.
Then, after a nice nap...I find I do enjoy those naps. A lot!! But I digress, after the very nice nap, we decided to explore a new park and so we picked out Madison Park, jumped in the Mini, programmed the Garmin, fired up the engine, checked the side mirror and...
...after the truck went by we pulled our Uie and headed out for adventure and fun!!
And promptly got ourselves behind a big ugly truck heading down MLK. But, what the heck!! It's an adventure, right!?!
We were heading into areas heretofore untouched by Jack and Carol!! This is where MLK continues on after it intersects with Rainier Ave. I've always turned left and gone north up Rainier Avenue and so this was all new traveling for me.
We got to Madison Park...Garmin was being a little bit of a dick...she would take me to Madison Park, the Seattle suburb but wouldn't give me directions to Madison, THE Park.
You see, Madison Park is a neighborhood in east central Seattle and is named after the city part at the foot of E. Madison Street on the Lake Washington shore.
Madison Park is a trendy little suburb full of organic-eating, Mercedes driving, Boardman bike-riding, Kshama Sawan voting, Liberal Loony Toons Holier-Than-Thou Nabobs!! But that's just my opinion. And I was able to form that opinion within five seconds of stepping out of my mini.
I don't know, it's a talent.
Anyway, Madison Park in the early 1900s was a popular destination for people who lived in Downtown Seattle. Though very close to the city center, it was seen as a summer getaway, with a cable car leading over the hills to the lake, park, swimming beach and ferries to destinations across Lake Washington.
This street was a dead end street but I drove down just to see if they had a walk along the lake. You can see the lake through the bottom of those trees at the end of this block.
Nope!! No walk along this part of the lake.
But we drove on just a bit and, by accident and some skillful driving on my part, ended up at...Madison Park!!
Hahahaha, when you punch the Garmin out a bit, you can see where the park is and sorta guide yourself to it. Ya learn something new each and every day!!
As mentioned before, Madison Park has a swimming beach...and that's it. It's bordered on the right by this condo...the bottom floor is a parking area for the residents.
And here's the beach. It was a blustery day and you can tell by how rough the lake is. That's the Evergreen Point Floating Toll Bridge (The 520) there in the background. It would cost $5.20 to drive across that sucker!! No. Way.
And we got a pleasant surprise while we were on the swimming beach. There, across the lake was a rainbow over Mercer Island.
Way to go, Mother Nature, way to go!!
After we'd been there a couple minutes, the weather changed across the lake and we could see they were now getting some rain...hahahaha, a lot of rain!!
The wind was kicking up the waves on the lake. You can get an idea of how rough it is here.
Looking at the 520, I caught a bus driving across. That's Laurelhurst there in the distance. Just to the left by a couple miles is UW. The University of Washington's campus.
Haha, here's a windy Carol
Here, so you can fully appreciate the waves, here's a closer shot. The waves, they were angry.
Even Mr. & Mrs. Duck decided they'd stay ashore this afternoon. Smart ducks!!
After we left the beach area, we discovered the trendy little neighborhood shops, restaurants and bars in Madison Park. Look!! They even serve Smithwick's!! Ah, I wish I'd seen that before.
And that spider...it moves its head back and forth.
Looking down the street.
One of the boutique shops. Great Halloween display.
Madison Park Boutique Shop
Reflected Window Selfie!!
Oh, the bakery. Mmmmm, the aroma was...enticing. I wisely refused to go in. I got this shot from the sidewalk outside the store.
Then, as we were walking along, we saw this entrance to the park across the street. Love the Fall Colors.
And, on our side of the street, they had a small park with this spaniel.
And this bird. Actually there were several birds around the little park. I tried to shoot two of them and, as they were separated by about four feet, I took a long shot of them with one in the foreground and the other in the background.
What I got was two blobs but the little branch off the bush in the center of the picture was in perfect, crystal-clear focus.
It was fun, strolling along and they had a whole lotta small shops, etc., to peruse. Here's the entrance to a semi-small grocery store in the neighborhood.
They had these pumpkins for sale in a bin out front. Hahaha, rather than let the kids go at them with a sharp weapon, we painted the faces on pumpkins, too.
They do jazz it up for Halloween in this neighborhood. Around the side of the building was this collection of pumpkins for sale.
They had some large ones there. Seriously, who would buy a pumpkin this big?
Artsy-Fartsy Shop
Reflected Window Selfie!!
Madison Park Apartment Selfie!!
Both Carol and I like these old architectural gems and often wonder at how the apartments are laid out in these old buildings. Needless to say, we'd both jump at a chance to live in one of these old beauties.
Down one of the side streets, we saw this unusual sight. Yeah, that's right, an English Phone Booth. I shot high because of all the cars in front of the Booth. But, hey, you get to see the trees so it is a bit of a give-and-take here.
Carol tried to get in it...I might have encouraged her to do that...just a little bit.
It was locked up tight. But it did have a little sign in saying it was an authentic English Telephone Booth and to treat it nicely.
We did.
The homes in Madison Park were...amazing. Beautiful Old Homes. We drove around after our walk and it was all, "Ooooh" and "Aaaaah" over the houses we passed.
Like this one. There were a lot of brick houses with the high, peaked roof.
Another example of the great architecture was the Madison Pioneer Hall.
This is Madison Park's oldest waterfront structure. The building was opened in 1910. Loretta Denny of the famous Seattle pioneer family bequeathed $20,000 for the construction of the building.
The Hall is reputedly the only remaining structure in Madison Park that sat directly next to Lake Washington. When the lake decreased in elevation by 8.8 feet in 1916 due to the building of the Ship Canal, the building suddenly found itself sitting on a beach lot rather than waterside.
Here's a picture of a the building from sometime around 1920.
The streets were lined with some old growth trees. These are mature, baby!! And the houses were all different and all well-maintained.
We saw this colorful bush along the curb.
And it was time to head back. Still we were able to enjoy the scenery as the trees are still changing.
Ain't that a kick? Love the trees along the street.
Just a nice scene.
And heading up MLK towards the Ol' Hole-In-the-Ground.
We had a good time and got to see some new places. Bottom line, there is just so much to the city that we could be here for many more years and still be finding new places.
We had a good time at the lake and enjoyed the walk around the Park. And the drive was fun; seeing all those houses.
All in all it was a fun day.
Life is good!!
Hooah!!
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