Kent Station reminds me of the shopping in Dallas. It is full of upper end stores and a perfectly maintained, self contained arranged like a small village. My place of the day was Christopher and Banks, woman’s clothing store. They were offering 40% off everything in the store and I also had a $10 off coupon. Seemed like a good time to go!
http://www.christopherandbanks.com/home/index.jsp
Yesterday’s new place of the day was the Air Traffic Control Tower at SeaTac Airport. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says “Air traffic controllers earn relatively high pay and have good benefits. Median annual wages of air traffic controllers in May 2008 were $111,870”. Wow. http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos108.htm
It isn’t the best photo that I’ve taken, in fact I made my daughter take it as the car was moving!
What a lovely, much needed Spring Day. The sun was shining all day and it was in the upper 60s! Heaven. I was compelled to be outside, so it was just perfect that I had a date with some friends to visit the 20 acre Kubota Gardens in South Seattle. These gardens were developed by Fujitaro Kubota. In 1987, the gardens were acquired by the City, fulfilling the desired of the Kubota family. There are ponds, waterfalls and of course, many types of flora. While I was there a young couple was having photographs professionally taken, I’m assuming for their wedding.
For years I’ve wondered about Saltwater State Park in Des Moines, WA. I mean I like parks and one with saltwater just has to be good, right? And yet I’ve only seemed to think about it as I drove by on I5 on my way to or from somewhere with no time to stop. Well, today after dropping my dad at the airport, I finally went!
It is lovely. There is plenty of Puget Sound shoreline (1,445 feet) with rocks to turn over and look for sea life, a stream that goes into the sound, some wooded trail areas, picnic tables, restrooms and a seasonal concession stand. I visited with a woman who was getting ready to scuba dive and she told me about seeing octopus and seals. There is an underwater artificial reef for scuba divers. My only caution would be to wear sneakers or other thick soled shoes because the beach area is covered with barnacles and broken shells.
http://www.stateparks.com/saltwater.html
Today dear daughter, the two pups and I went to Flaming Geyser State Park in King County between Auburn and Black Diamond. This day use park has a couple of interesting features.
* It has a geyser which releases a methane seep. With a lighter or matches, it can actually be lite and flames will come out for a couple of minutes. It’s kind of cool!
* There is an open field for model airplane flying.
* There is over 3 miles of freshwater shoreline along the Green River. In the summer months, it is used for tubing and when we were there today there were kayakers.
The website for the park states “Flaming Geyser State Park has existed on this location since the 1920’s. Operated as a private park into the 1960’s, it fell into bankruptcy. State Parks rescued it from conversion to home development and has operated it as a park ever since.”
http://www.parks.wa.gov/parks/?selectedpark=Flaming%20Geyser
When three friends (thanks Connie, Ann and Judy!) suggested that I check out Unraveled Yarns, I put it on my to visit list. I felt right at home in this little store which has a thoughtful selection of yarns and knitting supplies, as well as artful gifts. The women working there were helpful and the place just made me want to pull out some knitting needles and sit down for a visit! And, yes, I got a holiday present for my friend Susan. It’s a ….. oh wait, she might read this!
2154 S. 314th Street
Federal Way, WA 98003
(253) 941-2268
Sadly they closed in April 2012.
http://storefrontsseattle.wordpress.com/
More info on the museum can be found on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Seattle-Pinball-Museum/131237786915560
Update: We went past this museum in January 2014 and it was packed! (See the last photo with the blue doorframe). Their prices have gone up a bit, but it is still a lot of entertainment for the price)
Today’s new place is the Sea-Tac airport, with the photo taken from the top floor of the Doubletree Inn (yesterday’s new place). This photo was a happy accident because I was just lost looking for a meeting that I thought was upstarts. It wasn’t, but this lovely view was! Considering the photo was taken with my phone, I thought it came out pretty well 🙂 The photo below was taken the next day with the better camera, though it doesn’t look all that different. The airport is the 18th busiest in the country and is the primary hub for Alaskan Air. When I checked into the airport on my FourSquare App, there were already 43 people checked in there.
http://www.portseattle.org/seatac/
Originally uploaded by Gexydaf
Today’s new place of day is the Doubletree Hotel in SeaTac, where they have very lovely carpeting!
I was delighted to find a well used public library at the Crossroads Shopping Center in Bellevue today. Everything about the library clicked for me. The good things include the location in a busy enclosed shopping, the hours (Sunday!), the colorful, art filled decor, the materials selection (lots of foreign language books and books for the kids) and plenty of computers.
It’s worth noting that there is also a King County Library Connection at the South Center Mall and that many of the other free standing, more traditional libraries are open on Sunday.
http://www.kcls.org/crossroads/
This much used library branch made me think about the importance of having community space. Ray Oldenburg discussed this need for community area, which he called Third Places in his book The Great Good Place.
