Tag Archives: WA State – King County

Kelsey Creek Farm, Bellevue

Leave a reply

13340504343_aa9c5da73e_bI’ve been wanting to visit Kelsey Creek Farms Park at 13204 SE 8th in Bellevue for a while, so on Saturday after dropping off dear daughter for her ride back to college I stopped by. There was a birthday party going on and plenty of children in the under five crowd. The 150 acre original site had been a forest and was developed as the Twin Valley Dairy Farm in the 1920s. Despite pressure from real estate developers, in the 1960s 80 acres of the property was sold to the City of Bellevue for use as a park. It receives over 200,000 visits a year. ThePark’s website is here.

The log cabin is the Frasier House, built in 1888 and moved to Kelsey Creek Farms Park in 1974.  It was built by two Norwegian woodsmen and lived in for a short time. Mostly it was used as storage. 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Auburn Mountain View High School

Leave a reply

I had a meeting today at Auburn Mountainview High School 28900 124th Ave SE Auburn, WA 98092. It really does have a lovely view of Mr. Rainier. Itis a lovely, newer school that is well maintained. There are 1,450 students.

Lake Union Crew

Leave a reply
 


This is the amazing view (notice the Space Needle in the background) from the Lake Union Crew Building at 11 East Allison in Seattle. It wasn’t until I was writing it up as a new place that I realized the entire building was a boat and moves around as needed! That makes it one of the most amazing buildings I’ve ever been in! Here is somebody’s photo of it floating around. (Thanks znep!)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/znep/113675036/

There were some great houseboats next to the Crew building and I’ve included a photo of them 🙂

The Lake Union Crew website is here
http://www.lakeunioncrew.com/

Going into the Ocean

Leave a reply
 



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

 

 

Flaming Geyser

Leave a reply
Flaming Geiser by Gexydaf
Flaming Geiser a photo by Gexydaf on Flickr.

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

A Third Place, The Library Connection

Leave a reply

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.