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! 

We had a fabulous time, and we hope you enjoy the photos!

Seattle: Gum Wall and Pike's Place at Night

Gumwall color-coordinated thanks to Arrow vape mod

Among the lexicon of places one "must see" while visiting Seattle, especially if it's their virgin visit to the Emerald City, the Gum Wall tends to pop up fairly frequently. This is probably due to a few factors: 1) the gum wall is hidden inside of Pike's Place Market, so if you're already hitting one of the other, arguably larger and more noteworthy "must see" locales, you'll be real close to this one, too and 2) it's exceptionally photogenic, whether it's for your blog (hi there) or your 'Gram. Given these things, you shouldn't exactly be surprised if you find yourself joined by a large, enthusiastic host of others taking photos at the Gum wall. Endlessly photographed, posed in front of, and contributed to, the Gum Wall is a point of fascination, abject horror, collaborative art piece, and local icon. I've gone twice now, though this is the first time I believe I've taken enough photos to really merit a blog post. Antho and I both posed, and were even in some photos together thanks to the kindness of strangers who also wanted their photos taken together. 

Personally, I'm a little skeeved out by the fact that almost every single piece of gum adhered to these surfaces was previously chomped on, hydrated by someone's saliva, and then slapped on to join the collage. Plenty of people visiting at the same time we did were clearly fine, unperturbed by that realization, but you can probably tell from my expression above that I was acutely aware of it. Obviously, the gum wall is a huge tourist destination and there's a reason for that- just, you know, be aware and maybe bring some hand sanitizer for those among us who can't resist touching all the things. While we were pretty tired by this point, we still had a fair bit of walking left to do, and I've included those photos as there's only so many photos I can take of a wall covered in gum before I start to feel a little grossed out. There's plenty of photos in this post, so don't fret- and you can always visit the gum wall yourself if you find yourself in Seattle! It's a little tricky, but there are so many guides out there that I recommend you do your research. Best of luck to you, adventurers!