April In Seattle, Why Not?

April In Seattle, Why Not?

We moved up our trip to Seattle by a month. While on a walk with our son we were discussing how we might buy a used vehicle to keep in Seattle since car rental cost  have escalated so much. Also we were planning on replacing our 2003 Lexus RX 300 soon. He said why don't you just ship the Lexus to Seattle, of course, it was a no brainer! Shipping cost have actually dropped a lot since we shipped the Lexus to Austin from Seattle during the pandemic. It was only $1300 to ship back up there, $1100 less!. We used UShip.com. just like before and the trucker actually picked up just 6 days after booking the shipment on the day we flew out of Austin.

Our son Graeme met the driver at a parking lot just a few blocks from our house.

Arriving to Seattle in April gives you a preview to Spring flowers. We found an Air B&B in the Green Lake neighborhood, turned out to be a great location for our Seattle plans.

Just a 10 minute walk downhill to Green Lake trails

 

In just four days the family truckster arrives. We met the driver at Home Depot.

On our first visit to SNOWBALL we noticed an unusual amount of water in the bilge. After a quick search we found this check valve on the cold water inlet to the water heater was leaking. (upper left corner). No problem, I went to fisheries supply and found a perfect brass replacement that would never leak.

But after I replaced the check valve we still had a leak, time to go to the plumbing schematic in the owners manual.

After  2 days of searching I had an AHAA moment and found this fitting on the cockpit faucet had cracked! Wow it must have got really cold over the winter on at least 1 night, we had never had anything freeze before since the water stays around 40-45 degrees in the winter in Puget Sound.

A quick stop at Stone Way Hardware in Ballard took care of this leak, I actually installed two shut off valves so we can turn off the hot and cold lines running to this faucet during the winter. 

An opportunity to see the Cherry Tree Blossoms at their finest came up at the Univ. of Washington Quad.

Big D and Clara Love Nature

The Ardent Pose

A lot of cool buildings at UW

George Washington

Easter Egg coloring on SNOWBALL

And a Easter Seal

A back to the future trip to Seattle Center, the professional Wrestling Crew were at the newly renovated events center. Wow, they have a lot of enthusiastic fans pouring in.

With all the wrestling fans safely secured in the events center (in the background), we played.

Everybody has dogs in Seattle even the construction crews at Seattle Center.

Spring is springing now.

Typical Seattle playground complete with fun sculptors. 

On a visit to SNOWBALL I saw this sea star  on the dock, very unusual. I looked around and nobody was around so I just picked it up and put it back in the water. Later our dock neighbor told me he saw a Gull trying to scarf down a sea star!

Uneeda Burger is a gift to me!

No matter which way you point the camera in the Pacific Northwest.

A fun entrance to the park.

This leads to Lake Washington

A view of Bellevue on the left and the Homer Hadley Memorial  I-90 floating bridge.

And this viewpoint looking West of Downtown Seattle

Time for Pony Camp at Rock Meadow Riding School

A mutual understanding

All seven barnes have large horse lots connected.

There are 7 of these horse barns.

Two of these smaller covered riding arenas.

and one huge indoor arena.

A large jumping Arena complete with viewing stands.

and a small sign

These deer are not skinny like Central Texas deer

Lake Sammamish, another great nature spot.

A couple weeks later 

Grandparent Day

Lots of Creativity here.

Carkeek Park and Beach

Just dig under the rocks. The Olympics are in full bloom also today!

Don't bother if your not a Cat Lover!

The Hammock lives on for another few days.

A calm day on Shilshole Bay to run the motor.