Poo-Poo Platter

It’s been hot these past few days. Not middle-of-the-desert-kill-me-now hot, but pretty darn hot for these parts. Being the geek that I am, I was tempted to hide in the coolness of a mall or a coffee shop all weekend and not subject myself to the mid-90° weather. I considered it for a moment then elected to spend as much of the weekend outside as I could. There’s no point in fighting the heat. Might as well take advantage of it while we have it.

I don’t want to spend too much effort typing up a detailed summary of my weekend (it’s still hot in my apartment), so I’ll just list out all the fun stuff I did. This will take long enough by itself…

Saturday:

• Drive over to west Seattle and explore Seacrest Park and the Terminal 5 Public Shoreline Access area. Smile and say “hi” to everyone I pass. Play with a couple of dogs. Carefully walk through a large flock of feeding Canadian geese. Take pictures with my LOMO.
• Stop in Bellevue Square to grab a bite to eat at Rice ‘n’ Roll. Pretty good sushi for relatively low prices. Can’t beat SushiLand though.
• In a shopping mood, so drive over to Sports Authority and buy some new running clothes.
• Head up to Houghton Beach in Kirkland and have fish and chips for dinner at Kidd Valley. Hang out at the park people-watching, walking around the dock, watching the sunset, and just relaxing. Take a few pictures.
• Go home and do a late workout. The cold shower afterwards feels really good.

Sunday:

• Wake up early and go for a morning run.
• Load up cooler with ice packs, bottled water, and Gatorade. Grab towel and sunscreen. Get in car and drive out.
• Go to Jamba Juice and get a smoothie and apple cinnamon pretzel for lunch.
• Stop at Bellevue Downtown Park and do some sunbathing. I forget reading material, so I take a few pictures instead.
• After an hour lying in the sun, I walk over to Bellevue Square to cool off a bit. Browse around the Apple Store but don’t buy anything. No new toys for me.
• Drive to downtown Seattle, park near the ferry docks, and start walking along the waterfront.
• Continue walking up to Pike Place Market and spend some time circling around the area. Take a few pictures along the way.
• While walking through the covered market area, stop at the jelly sellers and try out a boat-load of different jellies. My favorite flavors are beer and sake. Must remember to pick some up next time I’m down there again.
• Walk down 1st Avenue to Pioneer Place. Hit a wall of people just getting out of the Mariners game. Turn around and walk back up to Pike Place Market.
• Run into Tim along the way. Stop and chat for a bit.
• Walk all the back down the waterfront to my car, and drive over to Alki Beach.
• Leave my car at Luna Park and walk all the way down to the beach area. The 2-mile walk is incredibly refreshing because of the cool air coming from the water.
• Stop at Spud Fish and Chips to get “The Special” for dinner. Find a picnic table and eat my yummy food.
• After eating, walk back and forth along the beach. People-watching, taking pictures, waiting for the sunset.
• An hour before the actual sunset, start walking back to Luna Park. Zone out completely along the whole walk.
• Get to Luna Park and find a nice bench to watch the sunset. Notice that several photographers are setting up tripods for night shots of the Seattle cityscape.
• Take lots of pictures of the views in all directions.
• Once the sun is completely gone, hop back in car and drive back home.
• Take shower, check messages, relax, crash.

So, that was my weekend. It was so much fun and incredibly relaxing. I did get a little toasted from the excessive sun, but, thanks to my sunscreen, I didn’t get completely burned. I really need to do this more often.

Pictures from my weekend are slowly trickling in to my Flickr Photostream. I shot mostly with my LOMO all weekend, so there won’t be nearly as many pictures as before. There should still be a few nice ones though. Stay tuned.