Summer in Seattle is just glorious. It’s easy to see why Washington is called the Evergreen State. And contrary to Seattle’s reputation during other times of the year, days are not all cloud and rain. In fact, we got very little cloud and rain. One of my friends said that these few months of good weather were so precious, everyone tries to pack in all the outdoor activity they want to do for the whole year into this time. Our plan, too, was to be outdoors as much as possible. Especially since the natural beauty in Dubai is more of the brown-colored variety :-).
Berry picking
We went berry picking the first weekend after we reached Seattle. It was almost the end of the strawberry season, too soon for blueberries and black berries, but just right for raspberries. These farms that allow you to pick the fruit are very creatively called U-pick farms. You pick all the berries you want, and weigh and pay for them when you leave. Thankfully, they don’t weigh the people as they go in and out or we would have ended up paying a lot more for all the berries we popped into our mouth while we were picking. Amma was constantly worried about Athena eating unwashed berries while carrying some very precious cargo, but thankfully there were no ill effects of that. Though they said it was the end of the strawberry season, we found some really juicy and sweet ones. The raspberries were delicious too. There was a technique to picking raspberries to avoid being stuck with the hard core that’s not really tasty.
Daksh is really quite a fuss pot. He didn’t like his shoes getting wet, he didn’t want to get his hands dirty and of course refused to eat the fruit. I have to work on curing this. The most fun Daksh had during the berry picking trip was outside in the parking lot, racing with his thatha.
We ended up picking so many berries, Amma had to make two batches of jam to make sure the fruit didn’t go waste. The jam was delicious, and we had it with oatmeal, with bread and even just as dessert (at least I did).
Mount Rainier National Park
Daksh, Vedant and I had never seen snow, and that had to be remedied. So off we went to Mount Rainier National Park. It was early enough in the season for us to find snow in the lower reaches of the mountain, at a short hike from the visitors’ center. So we packed warm clothes, lots of food and set off one morning. It has to be said that every time Amma wanted to pack food, we tried to dissuade her saying she was on vacation and we would find food wherever we went. But in the end, we were all thankful for her foresight, especially when we had two very hungry and cranky kids on our hands.
I’ve seen a lot of people in Seattle get really excited about Mount Rainier. Looking at it from the terrace of Arjun’s apartment, I couldn’t see why. But as we drove towards the National Park, there were many places where we got a wonderful view of the mountain, and got to see just how it dominated the landscape. It’s an active volcano, 14,411 ft high, and looks massive. It made me wonder what kind of an impact Mount Everest has on people.
We got there, struggled to find parking, made the bathroom trips and dressed warmly. There was snow right at the visitors’ center, but it was brown and muddy and slightly underwhelming. We started our trek, Vedant promptly fell asleep in the carrier, and Daksh started saying his legs were hurting before he’d walked 50m :-). But Rahul kept him motivated and we kept going till we got some really spectacular views, and found some spots to play around in the snow.
Thanks to Arjun and Athena’s advice, we made sure to dress the kids warmly, and have them wear goggles so they looked like little dons :-), so Daksh truly enjoyed the time he was playing in the snow. Some parts of the hike were a bit tricky, and before he fell asleep, Vedant found it hilarious every time I lost my footing and slipped a bit. He would gurgle with laughter, and it was so endearing :-).
All in all we would have hiked only half a mile, up and down, but it felt like so much to us out-of-shape people. Amma and Appa took an easier hike, and said they found some spots that were perfect for sliding down the snow. That will have to be saved for our next trip.
Boeing museum of flight
I stopped keeping count after 50, but I’m sure Daksh would have made about 75 flight trips by now. He is completely at home in an aircraft seat, and is fascinated by everything about aeroplanes and airports. So I was really keen on taking him to the Boeing factory for a tour while we were in Seattle. Unfortunately, they don’t allow kids under 4ft in height on the factory tour, so we settled for a visit to the museum of flight.
There was one section that had the older or smaller aircraft – those that were used in World War I and II, and another area for the big ones, including the Boeing 747 Jumbo jet, and the 787 Dreamliner. Daksh thoroughly enjoyed himself, and made sure to climb into every plane he was allowed into. This is him inside a toy helicopter in the kids section, and Vedant on the steps of one of the bigger ones.
Beach fun
I had told every single person we were planning to meet while in Seattle that I want to spend as much time outdoors with the kids as possible. So all of them really made an effort to include some outdoor activity as part of our lunch or dinner meet ups, and for that I am very thankful.
There are many many lakes around Seattle, and the wooded areas, parks and beaches along the lake shores are popular spots for all kinds of outdoor activities. One such place was the Lake Sammamish State Park, where we met my cousin Karthik, his wife Arathi, and daughters Ananya and Aarna late one Sunday morning. We had packed our swimming gear and a picnic lunch. The kids of course went straight to the water as soon as they were changed.
Karthik had got two inflatable floats, and the kids were having a great time playing with them in the water and with the sand on the beach. Then Rahul had this brilliant idea of renting a kayak, tying the two floats to it, and taking the kids on a trip while he paddled. The kids had so much fun doing this. Rahul was so sure he wouldn’t fall into the water from the kayak, that he wore his regular shorts and went on this trip. Then of course he fell into the water. And changed into his swimming shorts after getting out of the water. Ha ha ha ha ha.
The second beach trip was to Newcastle Beach Park on Lake Washington, when we were meeting up with Indira and Priyank. Our friendship with Indira and Priyank is the kind where we invite ourselves over and let them know we’ll be staying for lunch/dinner and want tea/coffee as well. This is what we did one Tuesday morning. While Rahul was busy working at home, Indira took me, Daksh, Vedant and her children Nidhir and Nila to the beach park after a delicious lunch.
Nidhir and Nila are both older than Daksh, so he was a little in awe of both of them. Nidhir is of course used to bossing younger kids around, but Nila saw this as a fresh and unique opportunity and made the most of it. And thus, Daksh was their gofer, fetching pails of water from the lake for Nidhir’s dam or Nila’s mud bath, as was the requirement. Vedant helped the mud bath by scooping up and throwing handfuls of mud into Nila’s small mud pond. After 2 hours, we had 4 muddy, wet, slightly cold, hungry, but very happy and thrilled kids on our hands :-).
Kayaking
The kayak expedition in Lake Sammamish State Park made Rahul very enthusiastic about doing more kayaking. I was of course very skeptical about doing this with both kids, but Rahul prevailed, and we set out to Agua Verde Cafe and Paddle Club, with Arjun and Athena. We rented three two-seater kayaks, Arjun and Athena on one, Rahul and Vedant on the second one, and Daksh and I on the third. I was petrified that Vedant would cry and wouldn’t sit still in the kayak, but he behaved very well, only showing us his drama skills when he caught sight of me. Eventually, soothed by the constant rocking of the kayak, he fell asleep, his head resting against the bulky life vest.
For the most part, Daksh didn’t want to paddle, and kept asking me if we were going to fall into the water every time the wake from bigger motor boats rocked our little kayaks. Every now and then, he would want to “help” me paddle, and would go about 5 strokes before giving up. I was the slowest of the group, and my paddling technique was quite terrible and inefficient. Rahul and Arjun would move really fast, and then wait for me to catch up. I eventually figured out what I was doing wrong while we were on our way back, and this made it a bit easier, but by then the damage was done. I woke up the next morning feeling like my shoulders were going to fall off 🙂
