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| A scene in Carkeek Park Seattle, Washington |
One of the larger parks in the city of Seattle is Carkeek Park located north of downtown and right on the edge of Puget Sound. We visited the Park last week and have a few photos to share. First of all, we learned something new about Google Maps. If you will search for Carkeek Park and zoom in you will see something like the image below. Click on the Street View icon and drag it over near the shoreline and you will see a couple of small circles which represent Photo Spheres ... release the icon over one of the Spheres to see the panoramic views in the screen shots below. The specific location is where a pedestrial bridge goes over the railroad tracks for access to the beach area. Railfans like the location for getting pictures of trains.
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| Search Google Maps for Carkeek Park Use the Street View icon to select a Photo Sphere. (By the way ... Per Google, it is OK to share Street View and Map images.) |
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| Victor Agababov's Photo Sphere - Dec 2014 (Capture is the view looking South from the pedestrian overpass) |
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| Victor Agababov's Photo Sphere - Dec 2014 (Capture is the view looking North) |
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| Our photo, taken last week, of the view from the bridge over the rails looking North. |
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| Our attention was drawn to this group of trees. |
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| Closer inspection revealed two eagles enjoying the nice day. |
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| As we were watching the eagles a BNSF freight arrived from the north and pulled up to a stop just after passing the bridge. |
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| Minutes later one of the afternoon Sounder commuter trains on its journey northbound to Everett passed the freight. |
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| New growth coming out of old branches seems amazing. |
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| Yes, the MOSS is amazing this year! Guess why! |
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| Trees are just about ready to leaf-out. |
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| Cherry trees starting to bloom. |
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| This Park has some great walks. |
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| Last pic from the Park looking westward over Puget Sound to the Olympic Mountains |
Part 2 - A Woodpecker story ...
Imagine yourself sitting at home one day reading and suddenly hear some strange sounds. It's like a bird call followed by some serious tapping on something metal. It repeats over and over. Of course, we had to investigate what was happening at, what turns out to be, the house nextdoor. It's a woodpecker on the chimney cap. And, it's a two step process: A serious few seconds of calling, and then a second or two of drilling down on the cap. We got out the recorder and captured the sound so you could actually HEAR how fun this is! Apparently, this is not so uncommon. We did some research on the web and found the picture we are using with our sound recording below. Have you experienced anything like this?
Part 3 - Solar Eclipse, March 2016 ...
One of the sciences we are interested in is Astronomy. We witnessed the total solar eclipse that passed over Washington State in 1979 and found it completely amazing. So, you won't be surprised that we were excited to hear that Alaska Airlines had slightly rerouted a flight from Anchorage to Hawaii so that the passengers could experience the eclipse this last Tuesday (March 8). We heard that a passenger on the plan recorded a video and so we looked around to see if we could find it online. Sure enough, thanks to Alaska Airlines, here it is! (By the way, before you watch ... The guy who recorded this was so overwhelmed that almost all he could say, over and over, was Oh My God. Well, it truly is a glorious thing, so maybe OK??? We're just sayin' ... definitely worth WATCHING!)
The whole story, on the Official Alaska Airlines blog, is here.
To read about the total solar eclipse in Washington state in 1979, look here.
How about it ... Have you ever seen a total solar eclipse?
