One way or another, today was even less Thanksgivingy than planned, but it's been a fine day nonetheless. I baked pumpkin pie last night while Scott made potato leek soup, so we were able to have pie for breakfast and leftover soup for dinner. Between the two meals, we went on an occasionally frustrating expedition.
The original plan was to go to Camp Long and we set out, with sandwiches and a thermos of coffee, after checking the Seattle City Parks website to make sure it was open.* We marched up the hill to find that, in fact, the front entrance was locked up tight. There was a sign on the gate saying that the park was closed when it was icy or snowy but as it was, in fact, a sunny, dry day, that didn't seem so relevant. We went a few blocks farther to check the other entrance but it was also locked shut. A man with his dog asked if we knew if the park was open because someone had told him it was, but we couldn't so much help him.
We retraced our steps back down the hill to see about getting in via the golf course as we've done once or twice before. There was a new fence where we used to enter. The golf course itself was open, but since we'd read on the parks website that golf courses would be closing at 2:00 and it was already well after noon, it seemed like we might end up locked in if we entered that way so we finally abandoned the Camp Long plan.
But we had sandwiches and coffee! After some discussion we decided we'd do the Longfellow Creek Trail since, when we attempted it some years back, we'd quit partway through. Today we reached the headwaters, but we also realized it wasn't just the bitter cold and challenging routefinding that discouraged us the original time: it turns out the route is a lot of walking through neighborhoods on sidewalks with very little of the trail anywhere near the actual creek. But, good fabulist that I am, you'd never guess that from the photos I took (interwoven above).
Okay, maybe the route through Westwood Village is a little less faux wilderness. But it's there that we found not only a public restroom at the QFC but also what we deemed the headwaters:
Not that we didn't cross the Westwood Village parking lot and continue to the south end of Roxhill Park, the destination referenced on every bit of trail signage and reputedly the home of the true headwaters of Longfellow Creek: Roxhill Bog.
While it was downright weird to be out exploring without Bessie, it was good to find that we were still capable of walking eight or nine miles while lugging about camera, binoculars, and lunch. Not that we weren't pleased that the trail ended just beyond a Metro stop where we could catch a bus to take us home.
*Full disclosure: Now that I look at the parks website again, I see that the "closed on Thanksgiving" list includes "environmental learning centers" (tucked between "teen life centers" and "swimming pools") and--damn it--Camp Long is considered an environmental learning center. Predictably, I'm now doubly annoyed.
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