Mount Baker

I spotted a poster announcing an upcoming concert at Mount Baker Park. I uploaded the info of the event. Anyone attending? :)

I love that someone added my house as a place on 43Places (I didn’t do it) and that people want to go there. Someone claims to have been there as well and says it was worth it. Right on!

I’m in Leschi, can I still join up?

Tomorrow, the Lake WA Boulevard will closed for another Bicycle Saturday. Next week it is closed on Sunday. We’ve been going on our first family bike outings with a few new pieces of gear. Sophie (5) is riding a “trailer bike” hanging off the back of an old mountain bike I’m piloting, and Sabina (2) is riding shotgun in a fancy kid carrier above the back wheel of Anne’s old bike.

One fun part of getting our old bikes back on the road are they are the same bikes Anne & I were riding in college when we first met, and all our dates were on bikes.

follow the Railroad Grade trail to the Glacier. It’s alive, constantly moving and melting, shifting… eerie.

Just don’t look in the portapotties.

It’s close to the lake, downtown, and I-90. The Mt. Baker Ridge neighborhood especially is an up and coming neighborhood that has not yet reached its tipping point, but it will. There is going to be a park built in the 1400 block of 31st Ave. S.

It is true that the grocery stores close by (QFC on Rainier Ave. S. and the Promenade Red Apple @ 23rd & Jackson) are….somewhat sub-optimal. This bums me out so I visit PCC, Trader Joe’s, or Metropolitan Market whenever I’m close by to one of them. But it’s still a great neighborhood!

Like Lee says, it doesn’t rock. It’s pretty darn quiet, but I guess we like that. Some pluses: parks, the lake, the quiet. Yes, it’s close to booming Columbia City, with its restaurants, shopping, and movie theater. Yes, it’s a quick drive into downtown (usually). Yes, the traffic congestion is minimal by Seattle standards. Yes, there are lots of kids, and since we have two of our own, this is a plus. But…

There are a few things missing. There’s no place to walk to for good coffee and yummy things to eat. (I miss the Rose Club.) There is no decent grocery store. There are no decent places to eat, period. Neighbors aren’t as friendly as I’ve found in other Seattle neighborhoods, and I think it’s because you see fewer people out walking and the houses are further away from the street and farther apart from each other. And since people have to do a lot of driving to get from one place to another, you’re less likely to bump into neighbors. The neighborhood public school is promising, but few families from the immediate area send their kids there, therefore, the school is not as diverse as the neighborhood (i.e. there are almost no white kids.)

Nevertheless, we like it. Forever is a long time, so I can’t say we’re in it for that long. It fits for now and the foreseeable future. Someday, when the kids are gone (they will leave eventually, won’t they?) we’ll move downtown into some small and easy to clean.

Well, I wouldn’t say that it actually rocks (like Capitol Hill), but after living here for about 1.5 years, I’d say I can’t imagine living anywhere else in Seattle.

It’s mostly residential, so some people have never even heard of it, but we like it that way. I live in an area called “Hunter Blvd”, which is a street with a park in the middle. The park is one of two in the hood, both designed by Olmstead, the guy who designed Central Park in NYC.

Plus, you get to meet and hang out with great folks like the head Robot Josh Peterson and fellow geeks like Carrick Mundell.

Like Josh says, I think we’ll be here forever. :)

I grew up in Seattle on Queen Anne hill, but I’ve found in Mt. Baker a neighborhood I want to live in as long as I’m in Seattle (well, until the kids are grown and we move down to the Market). Mt. Baker has great lake walks, a great park, is 10 minutes from downtown, and feels like it is a park all its own. I’ve heard Mt. Baker has the highest number of kids per block, and its easy to believe. The diversity of the area is another huge plus: I’m glad my kids will grow up not just hearing lip service toward this value, but will have friends, neighbors and playmates with diverse backgrounds.

We bought our first house in Mt. Baker 9 years ago, and we recently bought a new one that will let our family grow and stay in the neighborhood we love. Our daughter can walk to school (for a few years at least) and we’ll stay close to this place we’ve come to really love.