Dunlap

Today's walk in the Dunlap neighborhood was full of surprises. A friend and I walked 7 miles along streets close to Lake Washington.

We started near the Rainier Yacht Club

across Seward Park Avenue S from the very tidy Lake Washington Apartments (an affordable housing community) and next to the Atlantic City Boat Ramp (pictured above).

We passed Rainier Beach High School

and Beer Sheva Park where we saw a sign indicating that an existing culverted creek would be restored and a bridge and pedestrian walkway installed.

Walking around to the lake side of the park, we came to the Rainier Beach Urban Farm and Wetlands run by the Seattle Tilth and the Friends of the Atlantic City Nursery. This is a 22,575 square foot urban farm with five greenhouses. We noted a chicken coop

and some healthy looking crops.

Continuing east, we came to the small Pritchard Island Community

with its lovely homes (many on the lake).

We walked north to Pritchard Beach with its swimming beach and bathhouse (which had a large room with a kitchen).

Next, we headed west towards Rainier Avenue S passing some new single family homes

adjacent to the Rose Street Apartments (with services and Rose Cafe, an Eritrean/Ethiopian restaurant on the first floor).

Just north along Rainier, we came to the Buddha Jewel Monastery which had a large garden behind the building.

Then we headed east of Seward Park Avenue and noted some grand homes

and lake views.

Dunlap is home to All Saints Episcopal Church (with what looked like a P-Patch on its property).

Along this walk, we passed a house with some interesting looking antiques out front.

This was another good walk with lots of interesting discoveries.

Rainier Beach and Dunlap

The big surprise of today's 6.2 mile walk in the Rainier Beach and Dunlap neighborhoods was the Sferra Horse Farm. The same family has owned this 20 acre farm inside the city limits since 1919.

A friend and I spotted a few horses, a house

and a few out-buildings. The farm is at the intersection of Beacon Avenue S and S Bond Street - not far from Kubota Gardens and 51st Avenue.

This area has a semi-rural feel and the Chief Sealth Trail meanders through it, sharing space with power lines and a petroleum pipeline.

There are quite a few dead-end streets and along the way we spotted an old Road Closed sign

and a row boat that looked as if it were ready to launch off a hillside.

There appears to be no end to the surprises the city has to offer.

Brighton

Maybe it was because the sun was shining or maybe it was just the innate charm of the area but my husband and I were impressed with the tidiness of most of the 5.1 miles of Brighton streets we walked today. We could have been in Wedgwood or Crown Hill or many neighborhoods of West Seattle.

There were auto repair shops and apartments along Rainier Avenue S but, once we were a few buildings away from Rainier, we saw many well-maintained single family homes on nice sized lots. My husband did note a lot of chain-link fences and there were quite a few dogs who barked as we passed by.

This area is home to Othello Playground,

Trinity Life Center, Columbia Place Senior Housing,

Chua Hung Tu (I suspect it is a Vietnamese Buddhist temple but could not find any information),

Universal Human Body Energy of America (meditation center),

Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School,

Thanh That Cao Dai Temple Seattle (Vietnamese Holy House)




and a few stairways connecting dead-end streets to Rainier Avenue.

Along the way, we spotted a meticulously trimmed hedge,

a large vacant lot adjacent to an apartment house along Rainier where residents appeared to have created a P-patch, a mural on the Century Link building,

a garden, mostly hidden by trees,  that appeared to be filled with Buddhist statuary (I will be checking the front side of the lot on another walk) and an old phone booth.

This was another enjoyable Seattle walk.

Seward Park, Brighton and Columbia City

Today's 8.1 mile walk crossed into three neighborhoods, Seward Park, Brighton and Columbia City. The biggest differences seemed to be related to how far I was from the lake, how close to Rainier Avenue and how close I was to the top of the hill.

Rainier Avenue S is a busy street with lots of auto repair shops, services, apartments and churches.

I noticed ethnic shops,

Fire Station Number 28

with its Fire Tower sculpture

and the Southeast Seattle Senior Center, the purple and gold Graham Place apartments

and the large Brighton senior housing apartment complex.

This area is home to the Vietnamese Brighton Presbyterian Church,

Rainier Valley Community of Christ Seattle Ministries Office,

Jubilee Christian Center,

Iglesia de Christ Ministerios Lavantando la Cosecha,

Destiny Church,

Rainier Avenue Church (with its Johnson-Beckwith House),

Star Bethel Missionary Baptist Church,

a building which used to house Iglesia de Christo Church (a sign indicated that the congregation had moved to a new place of worship)

and Graham Hill Elementary School

with its logo painted on a nearby street.

Along the way, I noted an outdoor altar,

new houses,

quite a few land use action signs proposing to build an apartment house (near Rainier) and subdivide lots (near Seward Park Avenue S)

and "Sold" signs on three lots along Seward Park Avenue.

This was yet another Seattle neighborhood that turned out to be much nicer than I had anticipated.