Loading up on Vitamin D in Discovery Park

So like any well-behaved Seattle dweller, we took advantage of the beautiful sunshine today to explore Discovery Park - the huge 534 acre park northwest of downtown Seattle. After a quick bus ride westward from Capitol Hill, we arrived ready to do an entire day's worth of hiking. I'll let the pictures do the talking ...


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Making Onigiri with albacore tuna filling for the hike!

And we're off!

Beautiful wildflower meadows

Some steep climbing involved to see the hidden stuff

Ian making me a walking stick

Some kind of frog egg nest, maybe?

Somebody built a small shelter out of driftwood

Lighthouse at the very tip of the park - hiked 2 hours to get here

Bees busy at work

Sea Otter !!

Blue Heron hunting for fish and clams !!

Stopping for a snack of onigiri and cherries packed in the cute new tiffin

Wild strawberries

Wild blackberries .. ate quite a few of these ;-)

Reflecting pond

I think what I loved most about this place was how even though it is technically a park, it didn't feel like a planned-out "park" in the normal sense. It was more like a wild nature preserve, which it also is ... (taking clams is prohibited since the blue heron bird feeds here and the park is home to wildlife that migrates through the area). The scenery turned from open wildflower meadows to dense forest to oceanside cliffs. I also liked the fact that I could take the bus to this park. Despite being well within Seattle city boundaries, I felt miles away. There was a main, paved "loop trail", but we opted for just wandering on the smaller, hidden trails à la Robert Frost's, The Road Not Taken:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads onto way,

I doubted if I should ever come back

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Take the time to wander in life sometimes. I don't think there's anything more important you can learn/do in life than to let yourself go.

Did I mention on the way home we got off at the wrong bus stop downtown and actually ended up watching part of a free 30 minute pre-concert piano recital at Benaroya Hall? Total cost of this excursion, $8 for roundtrip bus for the both of us - a day's worth of incredible, secluded, peaceful hiking and a free piano concert downtown.

Once again, not a bad day at all.