We biked with friends to David Notkin’s funeral today. It’s been a very sad couple of days. Many people knew him through his work, but to me he was my dear friend’s husband whose jokes made my kids howl with laughter and the boys’ yardstick for all things tall: “If I stand on this rock, will I be as tall as Akiva’s papa?”

Julie of Wheelha.us, The Transportation Nag, and Barbara met me in Wallingford for the five-mile ride north through uncharted territory. Fun fact: we waved at a bus as we crossed through the intersection in the photo above. It turns out two of our friends were onboard. Our bikes beat them to the cemetery by a longshot.

This was my first time biking by North Seattle Community College. The northbound bike lane on College Way has a gutter alongside the curb. This is the first time I’ve seen a bike lane that isn’t either a door zone or a debris zone. It’d be nice if the gutter was narrower and some of it put on the left side of the bike lane. I’m curious if cars illegally park in the wide, enticing gutter during commute time.

I also spotted a practice bus bike rack here.

The Wallingford Avenue portion of the trip was uncomfortably busy, as expected–we should have navigated a block west, but I was worried it would be steeper if we did so–but College Way and Meridian were OK. We went right by the place we’ve gone for dental pictures twice, with one more visit coming up at some point. In the past we’ve gone by car, but now I know we can bike.

We weren’t the only attendees to arrive by bike. This just represents a small percentage of the hundreds of people there, but many people looked at the bikes and smiled.

Heading home we added a fifth biker to our procession and opted to top the curb south of NSCC to access a very quiet Burke Avenue:

Today’s miles: 18.4
April miles: 292.3