KIRKLAND, WEEK 5

June 11th - June 17th

Monday 11th
Drive to Cougar mountain park. The area around is completely developed, but the county preserved the mountain as a park. Really nice park (in some areas). The weather was really nice, the drive was short and pleasant. We got lost a bit, but found first entrance and went for walk.

Over a hundred years ago, the area was the center of coal mining. There are some trails, that show that history. However, it is incredible how everything from mining era is gone and nature took over.

Our next stop was Anti aircraft Peak. The trails were not as nice, the "million dollar view" was nice but not worth of million. The weather was really nice. Still ... the area once hosted military base, and nature took over again.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cougar_Mountain
http://www.kingcounty.gov/recreation/parks/inventory/cougar.aspx
http://www.pnwhikes.com/hike.asp?hid=Anti-Aircraft+Peak++%28Cougar+Mountain%29
http://www.ci.issaquah.wa.us/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issaquah,_Washington
http://www.downtownissaquah.com/

To change things up, we drove to near by city of Issaquah. Nice downtown, relatively empty and quiet. We had lunch in local brewery (ok, not the greatest one) and enjoy ourselves.
After that, we (mainly me) wanted to climb up the highest point in the park: wilderness peak. It was hard to find the trail head, the traffic got worse, but we finally succeed. The hike was pretty hard, going up and up and up. Steep. The peak itself was lost within the forest, so we did not see anything. Well ... nice exercise.

Tuesday 12th
Wednesday 13th
Thursday 14th
Nothing really. Work. Oil change. Dentist. Well ... nothing really.

Friday 15th
Easy, really nice and warm day. Relaxing. Seeing the friend in the afternoon (after three years). Went to Kirkland, walk around some, had dinner at Hector's (average). Fun.

Saturday 16th
Cloudy. Kind of sad looking day. Possibly seeing the friend again. So we decided to go to Seattle and visit couple of parks on the shore.

http://www.seattle.gov/parks/park_detail.asp?id=460
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Park_%28Seattle%29
http://www.seahurstpark.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seahurst_Park
http://www.seattle.gov/parks/environment/discovery.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_Park_%28Seattle%29



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 Ed Munro Seahurst Park in Burien. 

After leaving the park, we saw sign for Strawberry festival in Burien. So we took small detour and went there. Just a carnival, bunch of stands with everything but strawberries. Only one stand was offering strawberry shortcake. Really ....

Lincoln Park, Seattle. More people, shelters and tables ready for picnics. The weather was not the greatest, but there were already people picnicking. Oh well ...

Then we were heading to Discovery Park on north side of Seattle. I had nice plan to drive thru Alaskan Highway and quickly pass downtown. We did not know that the highway is under construction and closed, so we end up driving on first street. Sucked. We as well saw other face of Seattle.

Discovery park was kind of confusing. We wanted to see shore and ocean, but did not have any map. So we just drove and found the light house with small parking lot (full). Windy, cold and really nice view.

And ... drive back. We got lost a bit and end up in Fremont. The city was in the middle of some big celebration and we just could not believe what we saw. Probably thousands of people, some costumes etc. Really interesting end of our day. Few minutes of bad traffic trying to get on I-90.


Sunday 17th
Nothing, really.

And ... goofy skies ...