Biking up Kite Hill

We started our day with a cycle to the University District Street Fair in search of bounce houses. We only found a single one-kid-at-a-time trampoline, but in hanging out at the kiddie area we saw a cameraman arrive by bike, with all his gear in a backpack. He said he wants to get a trailer and of course I planted the seed that perhaps he deserves a cargo bike.

We don’t spend a lot of time in the U-District so we made a couple cool discoveries on our way home. First up was a train mural on the side of Brooklyn Frame Shop (4733 Brooklyn Ave NE). It’s next to a grassy, hilly empty lot so the kids ran up and down and up and down ’till they’d both fallen and scraped themselves up enough to want to hit the road.

And a couple doors down, The Weaving Works has a very nice yarn-bombed bike rack.

I was happy we weren’t stuck at bouncy houses all day because that meant we could attend the Police Boat Open House. We were there for the clown protest and while the boys are probably now part of the legion of clown fearers, they were fairly distracted munching on hot dogs and apples from the complimentary BBQ.

Since we were right by Gas Works Park, we ended the day with a trip up Gas Works Park Kite Hill, where I discovered bringing one’s bike to the top is the thing to do. I thought we’d only be up there for a short time and then hit the sand pit, but the boys broke out the sand toys and had a blast in the watery sundial. While hanging out at the top of the hill we saw a dozen people make their way up with their bikes to admire the view. Most of them walked their bikes up, but it’s really not a bad ride up the backside…although I haven’t tried it with a fully-loaded bike yet.