Lake City and Olympic Hills

The sun was shining today when my husband and I and I took a 5.7 mile walk through the Lake City and Olympic Hills neighborhoods.

We had walked parts of Lake City after a snow storm and returned to fill in the missing streets. We walked streets between 20th and 30th Avenues NE from 125th to 135th Street and included the park behind the old Lake City school.

Starting near the Lake City Library and Bank of America, we passed the Seattle Gymnastics Academy and some newer multiple family housing on our way to NE 133rd where we turned west and discovered a stairway at the end of a dead end street. This stairway and a footpath took us around to Olympic Hills Elementary School (this school is still operating and serves approximately 270 students). It's amazing how often dead end streets have footpaths which allow walkers to take short cuts that cars can't take.

Streets are wider and lots are bigger here than in some other neighborhoods and a few streets have sidewalks; some streets with newer housing have curbs but neither is the norm. The neighborhood is treed but not densely. It does have quite a few churches (North Seattle Church of Christ, Lake City Baptist Church, St. George's Episcopal and Lamb of God Lutheran Church) many with associated preschools and we saw one adult family home and quite a few home day cares. It also has some park space including the Albert Davis Park behind the Lake City Library and Community Center and the Park behind the old Lake City Elementary School which now houses businesses.

Walking along 125th Street, we saw a home with a big outdoor swimming pool and another on a large piece of property with the garage on 125th and the house separated from it by a creek but accessible by a footbridge. This creek ran through the neighborhood and a few properties had footbridges.