Seattle Stairway Walk #1 - Solstice Park

We recently browsed the selection of Seattle books at the University Book Store (in the U District near the University of Washington main campus). We found an interesting book:  Seattle Stairway Walks by Jake Jaramillo and Cathy Jaramillo. From the back cover:  "Seattle Stairway Walks tackles 25 hikes in 25 different neighborhoods." John would like to increase his walking and this seemed to be an interesting way of going about it. So, on Tuesday, July 29th, we set out to do our first of these stairway walks, we'll call it #1, and it is 1 mile in length and takes about 45 minutes at a leisurely pace. This walk is focused on Solstice Park, which we had never even heard of. The description sounded interesting:  A spot where someone has placed some stones into the ground at a point with a sweeping view of the western horizon. The stones are supposed to point out the location of sunset on summer and winter solstice, and fall and spring equinox. We will have to return on one of those date to see how accurate the stone are, and, yes, we say that with a smile. Now, here are our pictures taken during the walk. By the way, this was a fine summer day, warm with clear blue skies.

Solstice Park is on the left.
Enter stairs just ahead (in the shade).

Stairway into the Park

Cross this bridge, after doing the stairs,
and enter the open area straight ahead.

Overall view of part of the Park showing the
stones which designate spots for sunsets on
solstice and equinox days.

Summer Solstice rock.
We are not sure what the various marks indicate ...
more research needed.

A picnic table and bench are in the area to the south.

Various wild flowers seen along the walk ...

This is such a curious flower. At first, we thought the black
marks were wings of a bug. No, that is a part of the flower!

Lots of this ... we think it's wild sweet peas.
Not sure though.

Extreme close up from the flower above.
The world of "small" is amazing, isn't it?

Thanks for stopping by John's Island.