Our last day in Seattle, we met up with my family from Tacoma & did a little more sightseeing around the area. They suggested touring the Ballard Locks & I was so glad we went. There are several small lakes around Seattle, connected to Puget Sound via a series of locks to raise & lower boats between each lake.
Well, we were there around 5PM on Labor Day Monday, and dozens of boats were all streaming back into their weekends out. It was such a fascinating process to watch them all stream into the locks, carefully navigating where the warden tells them, coming up alongside the next boat, and getting all tied up.
We literally sat there for about an hour- fascinated by all the drama and excitement of watching boats get situated. Plus there were so many boats- big, small, fancy, expensive, everything! The families, the kids, the dogs, the parities- it was all so mesmerizing.
There’s a large lock that we watch fill with all the boats going “in” and a smaller lock that we watched fill up several times letting boats go “out” while all the other boats were getting situated in the large lock. There is also a great little display showing the salmon ladder showing all the fish going upstream around the dam.
The water was so beautiful here, and there are parks on both sides of the locks where people were enjoying the lovely sunny day, including watching the sea lions (seals?) frolicking in the water just below the salmon ladder.
Next, we headed over to Discovery Park- a former fort that’s out on a huge peninsula with awesome view of Puget Sound & we got another glimpse of Mount Rainier.
All in all, a great way to wrap up our Labor Day weekend in Seattle. I’ve still got to blog about our first half of our trip & the Mariners baseball game.
GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Having such a blast at Bloggy Boot Camp & meeting so many great bloggers.
