MAY 28, 2019
Parks, Locks, and Chairs
Hey mom and dad!
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A quick update this time around. Memorial Day weekend was mostly spent taking a short break to explore around the city, including a few day trips. Saturday was a work day till the evening. At that point, Bryce and I were invited over to Linh's for an evening of hanging out.
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First off on the adventures was Cowen and Ravenna Park on Sunday. These made most of the city parks back home look cute. Not to say parks in Madison and Milwaukee are bad, just very different and flat. Ravenna Park even has a hiking trail through it, with a Sulfer Spring Creek. As you can see from the second picture, there is a major difference in height between the hiking trail through the park, and the streets above.
Pictures from Cowen and Ravenna Parks. There are paths in the ravine following Ravenna Creek, and paths above with bridges across the park.
On Memorial Day, I woke up and decided to see where nearby busses could take me in the city (which is how I often plan day trips if I don't have a set destination). Thus, a day trip to Ballard was concieved. As I mentioned while home, I wanted to go see the locks, and now, I have the sunburn to prove I did. And photos. Best of all, the locks and gardens are free to walk through! Here are some photos of the locks, videos will be attached on this email.
Looking to the large and small locks from the Carl S. English Jr. Botanical Gardens. A week later, I spent some time here reading after hiking Discovery Park across the cuts in the Magnolia area.
To the right is the large lock, and to the left is the small lock. At this point, they were clearing the large lock to let a tug boat through, thus the traffic jam to the left. Above the traffic jam is a train bridge that lifts like many of the bridges in Milwaukee along the river.
After the tug boat finally went through, the jam was funneled into the large lock to go up the canal to Lake Union. At this point, they are on the salt water side, and are heading to fresh water.
While the water level was rising in the large lock, individuals on the boats had to maintain a taught rope, and adjust. This process of lining up boats, filling, and then letting people go on took around 45 minutes.
The small locks and walkway to the Salmon Ladder.
[JUNE 3, 2019 EDIT:] Watching the locks open was cool. Though I realize watching a compartment fill with water in a 1 minute 30 second video is probably about like watching paint dry. I'm going to leave the videos out of this post. The Ballard Locks are a place I recommend checking out sometime.
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Last, an update from life back in Milwaukee! Patrick sent me photos this morning of the chairs and tables out at the 707 Hub at Marquette. For all the bitching I did about the designs (and how in process, it is pretty cool to see your shit actualized. If you'd like to see the process behind this design, that can be found here.
From Seattle, With Love,
Erin