Nau speak: Seattle: Partial Burke-Gilman Trail Bikeride

The Burke-Gilman trail is a 27-mile long recreational trail through the heart of urban Seattle, offering the cyclist, jogger, walker, or other recreation-enjoying-outdoors-person, a unique route through some of the city's most beautiful, or odd, sights to take in. The trail loops past several vantage points on different bodies of water, offering views of the Ballard, Wallingford, Fremont and University District neighborhoods along with several others. Given that it's such a long trail, and we'd already been out and about for quite a significant chunk of the day, we weren't up for doing the entire route on this ride- especially given that we'd have to turn around and head back towards our vehicle, eventually, potentially doubling our journey. While our LimeBikes were equipped with an electric assist, that was still an intimidating task, so we satisfied ourselves with only taking a portion of the overall trail for the day. While that might sound a bit disappointing to some, we'd already seen Gasworks park, the Lenin Statue, Fremont Bridge Troll, and the Ballard Locks, so we'd had a pretty productive day of it thus far. Coincidentally, the Burke-Gilman trail connects several of these landmarks, so it's an excellent option for an energetic sightseer! If you follow it long enough, you'll encounter all sorts of mysterious and unexpected things, from street art to architectural feats, dinosaur shaped topiaries to a monk statue asking for peace and your own small contribution towards it.

Luckily for us, at the time of our outing it was an outstandingly beautimous day in the city of Seattle (quite a stark contrast to the dump of snow we've been enduring lately) so we had bright bursts of sun to warm our bones and, quite literally, light our way. Renting bicycles was an excellent choice, and we were thoroughly enjoying stretching our legs while playing tourists in our new home. While I've visited the city in the past, it's changed a lot in the intervening years, and there are few better ways to get to know a new city than by using your legs to walk or cycle through it! Or, I guess, skateboard, rollerblade, or scooter, if those are more your bipedally-powered modes of transportation of choice. To each their own!