Today was absolutely gorgeous! And probably our last nice day for a while. On a spontaneous whim, the boy and I decided to try out a new park: Carkeek Park.

We’ve been so happy with Green Lake and Wallingford playgrounds that we sort of stopped looking around at different parks. They are close and have pretty much anything a playground could want. Except, apparently, trains and a beach!

Carkeek is magnificent. There’s a divine view of the Olympic mountains over the Puget Sound (who wouldn’t want to see that whilst swinging?). In fact there were the sort of views that make me kick myself for not having a better portable camera. Clearly my cell phone does not cut it.

There’s a bridge going over the train tracks and the drivers honk at you as they go underneath. The throngs of children watching the trains was entertaining. I know my boy asked about a billion times why there weren’t more trains?! They did run really infrequently. Why not, indeed.

The beach was also nice. There are nicer beaches around, but this is the perfect fall beach, in my opinion. It’s rocky, there’s lots of things to dig up and peer into, you can roll up your trousers and run around in the water. It’s good.

Apparently Carkeek also has some small hiking trails and a stream with salmon in it! We didn’t venture there — I was wholly unprepared both for the concept of “beach” and “hiking” today — but I hope to soon. I love that there are urban hiking trails here.

The boy asked if we could go back tomorrow, which unfortunately we can’t, but I promised we’d go back as soon as we could. I think we have a winner! :)

Today the Boo and I visited Golden Gardens Park in Ballard. I felt the need to visit somewhere peaceful and beautiful and this fit the bill perfectly!

Okay, maybe it wasn’t exactly peaceful, what with the trains, ships, seals (or were they sea lions? They weren’t close enough to tell), sea gulls, screaming children and barking dogs. But I felt peaceful and that was the goal.

This place has it all. A beautiful beach that apparently goes on for quite a while. Lapping water. Sailboats and an assortment of other ships that pass by. The aforementioned seals/sea lions barking in the distance. There were approximately 1000 sea gulls. I’d been pondering the absence of sea gulls seeing as they’re a daily part of life where we lived in the UK. I wondered if perhaps the Pacific just didn’t have them for some reason. Turns out they do, and they all live in Golden Gardens. There’s a kids’ play area with the required slides and swings. Mostly Boo was obsessed with the water and sand. The water was absolutely frigid, turned my toes to popsicles the moment I touched the water, but the Boo was not to be phased. He’s a water baby, what can I say?

The view was beautiful. Not perfect with the threatening-to-rain-clouds, but suited my mood. There were a few trains that went by on the hill behind us which captivated the Boo. One of them even had a “digger” on a flatbed. Could a day be any more perfect for a boy than water, sand, slides, and a train with a digger on it? I think not!

Highly recommend this place. I suspect we’ll be coming here a lot more come summer when it’s warm enough (for reasonable people) to splash around in the water!

We live just across the lake from Gas Works Park and it contributes nicely to our view of Seattle from our balcony. It’s mostly grass with a fenced off old gasworks. It juts out onto the lake and they seem to hold concerts there and, we discovered, it’s prime viewing for fireworks. There’s a pretty cool sundial at the top of the hillwith a great view of downtown Seattle with Queen Anne hill to the right and Capital Hill to the left.

I thought there wasn’t a whole lot for kids to do, other than run around, but according to the website I was wrong! There’s apparently an entire play area inside a barn, excuse me, the “former exhauster-compressor building” that I clearly haven’t found yet. It’s a good park for picnics too, incidentally. There’s not a whole lot of parking, but fortunately for me it’s only a couple miles away so walkable for me. Very close to Fremont for decent coffee and food. Not bad!

I have a lovely idea. I would like to explore Seattle more, and I also have a desire to find a park without a death defying “big kid” gym tempting Boo to climb heights not only over my head but over my arm reach. Most parks have a toddler section, but who wants to go down a 4 foot slide when there’s an 8 foot one RIGHT OVER THERE?

So I am hoping to start to explore Seattle by visiting a variety of parks! I hope to take pics as well. I have driven past a couple with cool views which would be neat. I also hope to find a nice, friendly toddler park where I can let the Boo loose without hovering. That would be nice!

Edited to add: Seattle’s park system has a pretty cool website! That’ll come in handy!