Monthly Archive for May, 2009

Today was a beautiful May in Western Washington: Sunny with a spot of clouds, a nice breeze, and not too hot. Eddy and I decided it was simply an impossible day to spend indoors, so we decided to meander down to the Montlake area and explore the waterfront in front of UW and then go to the Washington Park Arboretum to check out the mixture of nature and human freeways intersecting.

For the most part, everything went well. We were getting good shots of the ghost ramps next to I-520, and got up close to some geese and their gosling. So when we encountered a trail along the waterfront that went back to campus, it was decided to go on this path and only took a sideways glance at the following sign, this would prove to be fateful:

The Ignored Sign. I decided it was most likely incorrect, and they were probably just kidding.

We continue going along the pathway, and then came to a spot in the open water where most of the boardwalk was submerged, so we had to walk through a few inches of water to cross. Slightly concerning, but a minor complication. We then started noticing that in many places they were using layers of bark to provide a somewhat squishy pathway–an environmentally friendly choice to make a human path, but slightly difficult to keep dry.

Then we went through this long stretch of almost the equivalent of quicksand, except with mud. But still, this was conquered with only minor muddiness. Then we encountered a submerged section of the path that did not have an easy solution to cross for me. Eddy was wearing sandals, and was able to kind of balance his way on a submerged board that was still somewhat buoyant. So he crossed successfully. I however, was wearing shoes and wasn’t too hot on the idea of going barefoot in that swampy area.

The situation.

Continue reading ‘A Dunk in the Swamp’