Discovery

Thanks to my roommate Chelsey, last weekend I was introduced to a new favorite spot.  It's called Discovery Park.  I'm going to call it an urban hiking oasis because once in the park you'd never know downtown Seattle is only a quick 10 minutes away.  Seriously, where outside of Santa Cruz can you find an escape with legitimate hiking trails, beautiful ocean views, and scenic greenery all around?  OK fine, this probably exists outside of northern CA and WA, but where ever else that might be I've never been so it doesn't count yet. (Side note: the views of the "ocean" below are actually of the Puget Sound. Pretty much the same :))  Anyway, three of our four roommates went on a mini adventure to explore the trails that lead down to the water.  We cataloged almost every step of the way, including the moment when Katie and I attempted to do a yoga pose on a wet, sandy log which lead to her almost doing a face plant as she fell.  As you'll see below I too almost tumbled off in extreme laughter.  Had she been hurt, it wouldn't be funny.  However, since she wasn't seriously injured I still break out in uncontrollable laughter every time I see the series of pictures.
For numerous reasons I can't wait for summer. Discovery Park is now apart of that excited anticipation.  The park will likely be crazy busy, but I'm thinking/ hoping convenience will out weigh crowds and result in continued discovery.

Washington Weekends

One of the great perks in moving to Washington is living closer to my sisters.  But “closer” is the key word in that sentence because even though we now live in the same state, we don’t exactly live close enough for random, spur of the moment weekday get togethers.  Which leaves weekends and we put the ones in October to good use!

October 8th: According to Wikipedia, Mt. Si "is a remnant of an oceanic plate volcano and the rocks are highly metamorphosed" (whatever that means).  More importantly, "the 4-mile long Mount Si trail climbs a total of 3,500 feet to the summit ridge.  The summit of Mount Si can then be reached by an exposed scramble (class 3) up the summit block which is know as the "Haystack"."  Conquering this hike was on Shelly and Matt's to-do list, so I added it to mine and we set out for the day.  Starting out we all thought, how hard can it be?  If we can stand on the top of Half Dome, Mt. Si is totally doable.  We didn't account for the fact that 3,500 feet in 4 miles means straight up hill the entire time.  Needless to say, we got our butt workout for that day :)  Besides spending time together, my favorite part was rock climbing up the Haystack.  It's super steep and somewhat terrifying if you put too much though into the pain that could be caused if you slip and fall, but totally worth the extra work once at the top.  And we were blessed with a gorgeous day which made for great views from the summit!

At what we thought was the summit
looking up at the top of the Haystack

Bottom of the Haystack

View from the top looking East

October 15th-16th: Bainbridge Island is across Puget Sound from the city of Seattle and home to Shelly's in-laws.  They hosted an early Thanksgiving dinner and graciously invited me to join them in kicking off the holiday season on "the island".  Their home is gorgeous, dinner was delicious, Bainbridge is adorable, and time together was wonderful.  Matt, Shelly and I capped off the weekend by going to the Sounders v.s SJ Earthquakes soccer game.  60,000 fans packed the stadium, most of whom knew every word to every cheer and literally stood the entire 90 plus minutes.  It was quite the experience.

Bainbridge Gardens - local favorite

It looks empty, but don't be fooled...
we were two hours early

Ferry ride back to Seattle from the island

October 22nd-23rd: Sometimes I wish the folks who decided where state lines would fall had broken up the west coast into a few more states.  On the east coast you can drive for five hours and see at least three states, if not more.  In Washington, if you drive for five hours (east) you're still in the same state and likely rolling into the city of Spokane; which in my case was great because that is where Lindsay goes to schol and my intended destination.  During the quick two day trip we ran a few errands, had a water front picnic in the main park downtown, waited in a 30 minute line to get locally acclaimed pumpkin donuts at Greenbluff, went for a hike at Bowl and Pitcher, successfully made an experimental new cookie creation, watched a movie, and spent two days of thoroughly enjoying quality time and conversation.  I'm thankful to live within driving distance of weekends like this.

One of the many pictures taken during my drive

Downtown Spokane park where we had lunch

Taking a break during our hike :)

Greenbluff pumpkin donuts!