I managed to find the slow way out of town. Here I am watching a crew clearing the large tree that recently took out the city’s power. Down the road I was stopped again as traffic watched a crane working on a new culvert.
Left is the tree top and right is the sizable trunk with fresh wires in between.
After arriving in Seattle and settling in and visiting with my brother, I attended a Christmas party with old friends Saturday night.
A bunch of Moto Guzzi owners-but no motorcycles parked outside in the snow.
Next day started with some detective work.
A Wedgwood grade school classmate of mine had posted this picture on her Facebook page. The house in the background looked familiar but I couldn’t find it on google’s street view.
The car may be a classic but it was just a couple of years old at the time.
Soon the case was solved.
Here it is almost sixty years later.
Next, I walked a little further to our grade school, past a ‘Little Free Library.’
“Every book is a Tardis”
A small portion of the Wedgwood grade school’s playground has been made into learning gardens divided by grade level.
A greenhouse just like ours with an ambitious self-leveling water collection system already half full for the sixth graders.
The faucet by the fence is plumbed a long way from the school.
For the third graders
A friendly sign.
I went by my old house and noticed a more efficient heat pump had been installed by the new owners. Mom’s plants are maturing in the foreground and our Scottish Terrier’s play area was behind the fence.
Across the street was a beauty berry bush.
Next, it was down to the water where Seattle likes to boat.
We are at the site marked number one.
In spite of a Seattle SeaHawks game and a forty degree day melting the snow from the day before, I saw a couple of boaters.
The Aqua Verde Cafe rents little boats and serves up Mexican food.
A tetrapanax highlights Aqua Verde’s small garden. The Interstate 5 bridge is in the background.
One of these tours might be convenient. They know where to go and will try to bring us all back right side up.
Birds of a feather flocking off the dock.
Next, I headed for Duck Bay in the university’s Arboretum, my favorite place to canoe as a kid.
Duck Bay residents.
When I was a kid, we used to drag our boat to the mud bank closest to the “You Are Here” arrow and muck our way in.
The Arboretum now has dedicated graveled landing sites, and they’re not very near the car at all. I was told at the visitor’s center that with the scarce parking, most boaters launch from the University crew house and paddle across the highway of motorboats going through the Montlake cut.
The university rents canoes from the upper left.
When I was a kid, this seemed a lot bigger.
Here’s the water route that leads to the noisy freeway bridges.
Next place to check out was at the south end of Lake Union next to the original Boeing airplane plant .
The mouth of Cedar River has a small park and a boat club centered around its racing shells.
When Boeing is done building the plane on the right it will be towed over the slender bridge to the field to the left.
Not the prettiest place to paddle, but lots to look at.
The couple on this bridge were waiting to see a plane take off.
A sign you don’t see very often.
I was behind the building when there was a loud roar overhead.
I missed the potentially fatal jet blast, dang. The couple on the bridge was excited to see the plane take off, whoa! How did the locals know the time of this thunderous event?
Later, back at my brother’s place:
A couch surfer’s view of my brother’s apartment on the last morning.
When a guest stays too long they look like prey.
On the way home, I stopped at Trader Joe’s for a few special groceries from the ‘big city.’ There I learned when not to get another free sample.
Sign at Trader Joe’s
Tangly Cottage Gardening 
