Monday, 15AUG, it was off to the University of Washington
Waterfront Activities Center for canoeing on Lake Washington. We only had water access to the northern side
of the UW’s arboretum because of the floating bridge freeway construction on
the north side. Half way through our
paddle Dan insisted we stop at the UW’s Hiram Conibear Shellhouse to see the
1936 Pocock shell, the HUSKY CLIPPER, used by UW to win the 1936 Olympics in
front of Hitler. (Conibear was the
second UW crew coach, & developed the “Conibear stroke” which
revolutionized the sport.) Dan strongly recommends reading the book “The Boys
in the Boat” & watching the documentary on PBS about these farm kids who
had rarely been outside of Washington; & their overcoming unbelievable
obstacles to represent the USA in Munich Olympics & bring home the gold! For a reasonably priced water activity in a
beautiful setting, we highly recommend the UW Waterfront Activities Center
(especially once the freeway construction is done!)!
From there it was off to Volunteer Park on the top of Capitol
Hill in Seattle, for wading & playing.
Volunteer Park was designed by two of William Olmsted’s sons; & was
where many an unsupervised day was spent by the Ryan children when spending the
weekend at Grandma Jean Ryan’s. Sadly all
the death traps of Dan’s youth (swings, merry-go-round, see/saw, jungle bars,
etc) have been replaced by modern “safer” alternatives. But Dan did have to admit that the rock
climbing structures were pretty neat.
And once Jaxson figured the concept out, he showed no fear in rock
climbing.
Then back to house for one last campfire before Rebecca,
Raymond, Jaxson & Mason fly out tomorrowL
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