Good Day to Do the Puyallup

Nice day to hit the fair. Warm sun, cool breeze, Dizzy Pass (unlimited rides) day, and barely anyone here. We've done the slide and a number if rides already, because the lines are so short. Meeting up with friends and their kids, so we all get to play like crazy.

Of course we got an "elephant ear" - fried dough, drenched in butter and cinnamon sugar. Good stuff.

Steel Lake Park

We were at Steel Lake Park in Federal Way over the weekend.  Who knew there was a giant lake in Federal Way?  (Don't answer that.)

They have multiple parking lots, sprawling lawn spaces, and huge playground for kids, and a snack shop open until 9 PM daily.

They have a designated swimming area, with lifeguards.  A stone throw away, they have unsupervised beach, and they don't care if you go swimming there.  They have a sign that tells you not to, but no one cares, and so we camped a bit of that beach for the sunshine, and the kiddo and I went swimming.

(image swiped from the Park website)

Steel Lake Park is beautiful and a great place to hang out for a bit, swimming or not.

Off to Arizona

Heading to Arizona for Christmas.

Chambers Creek Park, Tacoma

Chambers Creek Park, in University Place (aka Tacoma). Used to be a gravel mine, so has some really fascinating concrete structures. Beautiful park with huge open spaces.

Kite Festival was tons of fun. Took my little one on a play date with her friend. We got bits of wind here and there, so not much kite flying, but it was a wonderful day. They had bounce houses and food trucks.

Food truck with news article saying cash strapped public schools try inviting food trucks.  They had "spiral cut potatoes" on a stick - basically a different kind of French fry, and it was good.  The idea that schools are so cash strapped we can't afford to feed kids who can't afford food in the first place, is depressing and a bad sign for our society.  The food trucks are a bad solution to a problem that shouldn't exist in the first place.

Pierce County Fair - Frontier Park, Graham, WA

Hanging out at the Pierce County Fair at Frontier Park in Graham, WA, tonight.

It's a nice park, with lots of walking trails. Also well equipped with animal barns for those of who grew up around farms.

The Little One loves the rides.  Hoo-boy, do they get you coming and going through.  It seems like all the fairs around here contract Funtastic to run the rides. They do a great job now of selling you a paper card with a barcode, which is then linked to the database.  Each ride operator scans your card, once for each person who is going to ride, and the scanner wirelessly registers the change in value of the card you have, and the operator can tell you how many tickets you have left.

Note that one "ticket" has a value of about 50 cents.  So, those rides that are 7 or 10 "tickets" per rider?  Yeah, you see where I'm going with that one.  Thank goodness I only have one kid!  (Of course, some day, she'll bring her friends along...)

Graham is old farm country, so every time there is an event here, the buildings fill up with cows, pigs, goats, chickens, dogs, cats, rabbits, etc., etc.  We always have fun walking through these.  There are some really weird looking chickens in the world.

Fort Casey, Whidbey Island, WA

We were exploring Fort Casey today, and I couldn't help but try to imagine it as a dwarven fortress in a D&D world. Most of it is partially or completely underground and it's very hard to see from certain angles. Even the massive guns would be below sight line when in then"loading" position until raised to fire.

Tacoma Nature Center - break the daily routine

At the Tacoma Nature Center today. I've been to Cheney Staidum dozens of times, and somehow never knew the Nature Center was here, tucked right in the middle of Tacoma, preserving what must be a sliver of what the forest here looked like before modern civilization arrived. In hindsight, I've even driven past the Nature Center before, but didn't register it. It's amazing how much of our daily lives are dominated by routine, that discovery somehow slips to holidays and special occassions.

Polyglot Park

I love this area.  I'm in Orting at the park and it's interesting hearing the number of families that mash English with another language when talking to their kids. I've identified three different languages, although i couldn't tell you what they were.

Orting of all places ;)

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Main City Park is a Community Park located in our downtown area, right off of the main street through town!  This park features two sections.  The first section located at 101 Train St SE has a play area with a big toy and swings, built by the volunteers, public restrooms, benches, picnic tables, trees, plantings, horse shoe pits, a memorial wall, a gravel parking area and a covered area that is available for reservations.  The second section located at 102 Train St SE is the area where the basketball court is, with trees, plantings, benches, our lovely tree carvings and the gazebo that is available for reservations.  This park is also a place where you can park and walk on the Foothills Trail.   Many events happen right in this park!