Pacific Northwest September, 2003 |
I left San Francisco on Saturday, September 13th at 5:30AM and drove 13 hours north to Seattle with the Prince in the car, a pot of coffee, and Songs for Jane cranked. I was off to visit Amanda and Stew in their new Seattle home for a few days, then off to Portland for an Orthopedics conference.
Saturday, Sept 13th 19:00. The very wired Prince and I arrived at the new Stewart homestead. We had a quick hello and raced off to the Merrymore dog park in Redmond i heard so much about.
The Merrymore park is huge- it's a sprawling community park in Redmond, home of Microsoft and Bill Gates, where there is a very large fenced-in area for off-leash doggie frolicking. There is a stream, and endless trails lined with mulch for doggie running. There are training areas that are cleared-out little areas where the owners congregate and dogs meet up and sniff, sniff, sniff. Thre are field areas, grassy areas, trails, trees, woods, the stream, it's totally amazing. I was immediately smitten. There are about five areas on the stream where a shallow area is partitioned off just for wet play with chicken wire. How amazing. It's got to be about 5 acres of land, probably more. JUST for the dogs. WOW! The chihuahuas hate the Prince, and they were their usual, unfriendly selves at the park, too. The Charmer was his usual friendly self, sniffing, running all over, meeting new dogs and generally racing around. We got about half an hour in at the park before it was too dark to stay any longer. I wish we had this in SF!!!!
After the park was low-key. I was dead tired after driving 13 hours in one shot, so I went to bed about 9pm. The dog was still way wired, so he was up even after I was long asleep playing with toys, romping around on the bed and genreally waking me up at regrular intervals. Spaz.
The new apartments are okay. Cute, and they are spacious, but somehow they just don't feel like 900 somthing square feet... and it's really so... so.... manufactured feeling. Totally lacking any character or real "charm." The area is the usual suburban sprawl I generally dislike, with a large strip mall on either side and an endless vista of apartment complexes and condos. I'm not smitten. I still just like the city the best, but still not as much as SF. It's certainly greener, and that's wonderful- and smells I dont' know, cleaner and greener... I'd be depressed here, I think.
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