Surf ‘N Turf
All indications were that the nice weather we experienced over the weekend was going to turn rainy on Tuesday, so we headed for Discovery Park Monday afternoon. Discovery Park is on a peninsula that juts into Puget Sound just north of downtown, adjacent to the Magnolia community. It was once a military facility called Fort Lawton, which they have mostly vacated and turned over to the city of Seattle.
We followed a 3 1/2 mile loop trail that starts off in second- or third-growth forest, descends to a beach on Puget Sound, climbs back up to a dune-crested bluff that offers terrific west-facing views, then plunges back into forest. It offers a lot of different terrain for such a short hike.
(click on any picture to enlarge)
Two Washington state ferries pass in opposite directions, with West Seattle/Alki Beach in the background.
On several visits in the 80s, Mrs. Perils’ father would reminisce about the few days he spent at Fort Lawton as a soldier in WWII before being piled into a ship and sent to Hawaii. We would walk around and try to locate the spot where he remembered seeing Mount Rainier.
Mrs. Perils poised for flight on a vehicle fashioned from a branch of Scotch Broom. It’s not in bloom yet, but she hates the odor and the pollen it exudes, while I welcome it as a harbinger of spring.
A close-up of the Olympic mountain range, somewhere near Bumtown.
These gourd-like things are residences for purple martens, I believe. If so, they are the result of a one-man crusade by a friend of ours, Kevin Li, who died recently while scuba diving. As a result of his efforts, you can find marten housing squirreled away all around the shores of Puget Sound. All of that, and he made a wicked chocolate cheesecake.
Oregon Grape buds. Just showin’ off the close-up qualities of my new Canon S2 IS!
This tree looks like it could start talking to you (or lap-dancing - Mrs. Perils thinks the bulges look like boobs). I’m intrigued by the strips of bark filigree incongruously woven around the surface.
One of our favorite seafood restaurants, Chinook’s, is unavoidably on the way between our house and Discovery Park. It’s situated by the docks at the Fisherman’s Terminal marina. Dinner there was the perfect coda to our afternoon’s idyl: halibut cakes for me, pan-fried oysters for Mrs. Perils, accompanied by a smooth Sauvignon Blanc.
