rainy run along lake washington

 I'm back, running long distance again! One of the great things about running alone is that you can stop and take pictures as frequently as you want.

Today I was supposed to wake up at 7:20am and go running with a local run club I joined but then I snoozed my alarm (with the plan to get up at 7:30am) and immediately proceeded to sleep through that alarm. When I woke up it was like 8:16am and far too late to join anyone running.

Hours and hours later, around like 1pm or so I woke up and decided to get out of bed and officially start my Saturday. The plan was to go up E Madison St, which is this long bent road that cuts through Seattle's grid structure. Interestingly, Madison Street is the only Seattle street that runs uninterrupted from the salt water of Puget Sound to the fresh water of Lake Washington.

It doesn't look it on the map, but Seattle is an incredibly hilly city. It doesn't have quite the reputation of a place like San Francisco, but definitely nothing to scoff at

Here is the actual route I ended up taking (I've subtly censored my home address)

I was surprised when I got to the waterfront area. For some reason I had expected the lakefront area to be kind of similar to Chicago, which has a sort of long continuous path alongside the lake, but Seattle's lakeside is more like bougie residences broken by occasional parks. It was possible to get glimpses of lake here and there from the higher parts of the road:

(Also, note the interesting sidewalk grooves due to the steepness) It looks like there were bars of some sort, but they were ripped off maybe? I saw it on a different hill too.

Something I enjoyed was the picturesque cozy lake-facing house design. Seattle always has this bright gray feeling about it during these months, and it's something I find kind of cozy.

My only point of reference with large lakes next to cities is Chicago so again I found it pretty interesting that these areas were filled to the brim with really nice mansions. Chicago fills this kind of egalitarian spirit since its legislation actually forbids any buildings from being built too close to the lake. In that way, the lake is kind of this common good.

The few parks I did see were small and had very small beaches. Here's Denny Blaine Park, which looks to be kind of nice for picnicking

The odd thing about this park though is that the dock (the little roof over the water) is actually private property. The park is surrounded by two waterfront mansions.

Basically that meant that when I was running "alongside" the lake, I couldn't actually see it, because there were trees and mansions blocking the shore. They did have these little signs at least, indicating where you could branch off to see the water. For instance:

Shore view -- at Howell Park

kind of a sketchy dirt path down to the shoreline

Howell Park was even smaller, and also was surrounded by mansions on either side. Here you can see the quaint little area beside the entrance to Howell Park

private dock on the left, Bellevue in the distance

Honestly I kind of liked how quiet and off the beaten path this little beach was. I'm sure it's a great place to picnic in the summer months.

Eventually at some point, the lakeside trail turned from sidewalk into just dirt, like this:

two roads

an interesting landscaping choice

lakeside houses

Oh, also I saw this huge group of ducks just sitting in the lake as the waves turned. Seemed chill

I made it to a larger park called Madrona Park, which seemed to have a lot of amenities. 

I didn't see a food concession, but I did see the dance studio - which I'm surprised was on the sign to begin with

the building looks old and from a different era -- appears to have been a bathhouse in the past

the park is a strip of land alongside the lake

Past the park I saw this parking lot looking out onto the lake. I kind of liked the vibe I was getting so I snapped a picture. I think at this point it was raining -- it's quite something to just be out there with the lake and clouds.

Additionally there was this kind of dock for small boats. One might contrast this with the yacht docks you'll often see near downtown Chicago's lakefront

Once I was firmly in the neighborhood of Leschi (pronounced lesh-eye) things looked a bit more towny. We have this moorage:

I think at some point I decided I needed to get back home, so I stopped going south and started climbing up this steep hill to go back towards Capitol Hill.

low 8 foot underpass

leschi park

Eventually I was running through the hilly suburbs of Leschi:

Many of the streets around this area appear to have been named after the Great Lakes of the Midwest.

I made this quick diagram thinking maybe there would be some correspondence, but maybe they just didn't want to name a street Ontario St or Michigan St since those seem like more common options for road names.

beautiful cherry blossoms I saw while running

this sign was bent, and also... weirdly I couldn't find the existence of 34th avenue on Google Maps

Kind of random tangent, but I was using Google Maps to look for ways to get back home, and after I saw this sign I wanted to see if I could run through 34th avenue. Except that it didn't exist on Gmaps:

the X is where I took the picture -- where E Alder St becomes Lake Dell Ave

presumably 34th Ave gets its name from this disconnected street north of it

I assumed this was just a fluke in Google Maps, and I was right -- looks like this is properly modeled in OpenStreetMaps:

I liked this bend in the road for some reason. It had an interesting concrete wall.

A close up of some posters attached to the concrete wall:

Eventually I found a way to get back towards home: it involved going up this huge staircase. I've mentioned it before, but since Seattle is built on a bunch of slopes, there are sometimes staircases in between streets for pedestrians to use. This one looked quite mossy -- many appear unkempt like this.

a leaf slide on the side?

the view to below

I stopped by this park -- Peppi's Playground, a memorial park.

Nearby was an elementary school that was kind of carved into the hill. You can see a mural, which contains some northwest tribal art:

At some point I knew I was back in the Seattle suburbs that I live close to. Parks looked more like this:

and I could also see the city off in the distance! Occasionally I'm reminded of some of the suburbs of Chicago -- you can always see the city off in the distance, even from your quiet suburban street.