Part of our original plan for today was to go to the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks, a favorite part of our time here in 1998. With just recently spending the day at Bonneville Lock and Dam we decided to nix this from our itinerary. Plus, we had all fallen in love with Vasa Park and Lake Sammamish so this change would hopefully allow for extra time here.
Our first stop was Gasworks Park, which is on the site of the former Seattle Gas Light Company and was opened to the public as a park in 1975. We came here to get some of our last views of the beautiful Seattle skyline. This park sat right on Lake Union and you could see all the buildings directly across the water. We spent some time on the banks of the lake before heading to the top of the large hill. As we made our way around the hillside on our way to the top we could see out into Lake Union from one side and the old gas company structures to the other. We were all getting a kick out of the group of geese that were also wandering all over the hillside. As we looked out into the water we enjoyed watching the various kinds of boats.
We made our way back down the hill and got into the truck. Stop number two of the day was Fremont, another favorite from 1998. Fremont is a quirky town that has declared itself the "center of the universe" since the 70's. There are tons of artistic touches throughout the streets. One of the first works we came to was a sculpture of people waiting for the bus.
As we walked Ella got very excited to show us the sculpture of Saturn she found sitting atop a building. She was so focused on it that she didn’t see the rocket ship right in front of her on top of another building. When we pointed it out she could hardly believe she missed it since it was so large.
We continued to wander exploring the art and stores throughout the neighborhood. As we started to get hungry for lunch we found an Indian restaurant called Qazi's Indian Curry House with a lunch buffet. They had some tables outside which was an added bonus.
After we were nourished we had enough energy to walk up the very steep hill to get to the Fremont Troll under the bridge. We kept telling the girls we were going to see a troll and they were skeptical. As we got to the top of the street and the troll came into view they were amazed.
There were several people there checking it out at the same time as us. A group of teenagers arrived just before we did and the girls watched as they climbed to the top of the troll’s head. They were shocked when the one boy went onto the troll’s nose. Seeing all of this climbing inspired them to climb onto the top of the troll’s hand.
Adam then took them up to the troll’s shoulder.
Once the teens cleared out we quickly jumped into the crook of the troll’s arm to check him out up close.
After having our full experience with the troll we made the trek back down the steep hill. As we walked back towards the truck Lily noticed a little gold dog dragon outside of a restaurant and it immediately reminded her of the scavenger hunt at the Japanese Gardens in Portland, Oregon.
Just past our parking lot was the Milstead and Co. coffee shop. We went inside to check it out and Adam and I thoroughly enjoyed their coffee.
With that we had completed everything we wanted to do in Seattle. We headed back to Vasa park and spent the rest of the day enjoying Lake Sammamish one last time. We were having too much fun at the lake to go back to the camper and cook dinner so we called a local restaurant and had a pizza delivered lakeside. Hopefully we will be able to return someday.
