May 22nd, 2026, Washington Park Arboretum
Seattle, WA || Sxwacugwit, Duwamish land
We’re baaaaaack! This marks Leeloo’s, Sieh’s, and my glorious return to hiking! Last year, we regained camping after thinking we’d lost it forever to my chronic illness, and this month we have triumphantly found a way to adapt hiking.
Our new way of hiking looks different. It requires pathways of a certain width, and there can’t be stairs, big tree roots, or scrambles. It can’t be rainy, or have standing water or deep mud. But we live in an area of incredible natural beauty, so even when you exclude all of the trails that don’t fit the bill, there’s still quite a bit to enjoy.
Our friend met us at the Washington Park Arboretum. It’s in Seattle, and just down the hill from where we used to live on the border of Capitol Hill, Madison Valley, and the Central District. I’m somehow always surprised by how beautiful and wild it looks here, right in the middle of a major city. It’s called the “Emerald City” for a reason, and it’s not because we’re all wearing glasses with coloured lenses.
We parked at the Graham Visitors Center, which houses Wisteria Hall, a super-neato event space. I got Yunnie and the bike trailer unloaded from the back and got them set up. Yunnie needed to be unfolded, have her extra back cushion put back on, and have the GoPro attached to its mount. The bike trailer just needed its arm re-extended. So convenient that Majel has such a large storage space in the back so I didn’t even have to fully collapse it. Hooked them together and it was time to unload the kids! They’d waited patiently in their Sleepypods in Majel, and were eager to get out to see some sights.
It’s been a long time since we went anywhere at all crowded, so they were a little nervous, but handling it well. I also caught Leeloo right when she usually has the first of her big marathon naps of the day, so she was mostly trying to nap in the bed in the trailer while we were tooling around. Sorry, Leeloo!
While he tends to be pretty shy, Sieh was much more interested in looking around, and he was really brave about checking everything out. It was kind of funny, because another cat adventure human stopped to chat with us (sadly, sans cats) and commented that Sieh looked nervous, but we were parked right next to the busy bathrooms…and she came over really close (a cardinal sin in Sieh’s book.) He was actually the more outgoing of the two on this trip!
One of the most exciting parts of this trip was that Cousin Maggie came along! The kids hadn’t seen her in so long!
We started out by going on the paved road that weaves through the arboretum. It’s closed to cars but bikes, walkers, and wheelchairs are all good to go. Leeloo did super well even with multiple bicycles passing by. At one point, the road goes right up against the neighbouring golf course, and we got to see a cutie patootie lawn mower roomba through the fence. There must have been more of them, because that would have been way too big of a job for such a little guy all on its own.
We got to the end of the road and moved on to the paved trail. They converted this trail from gravel several years ago, and now it’s super posh.
We decided to take the kids down to the water, and we had our first experience with Yunnie drifting! Turns out that if you don’t go slowly down a steep hill with small gravel on it, you’re going to slide diagonally! It was actually pretty funny. Didn’t bother the kids at all. Going uphill isn’t an issue, thankfully, because I was kind of worried about how we were going to get back.
Yunnie plowed through the large, deep gravel under 520 like an absolute champ. I couldn’t believe it! I thought it was going to be completely impassable for sure. If you’re not from the area, highway 520 goes across the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, which is the longest floating bridge in the world! You can actually kayak under it, which is kind of neato. Back before they remodeled the whole bridge, there was an old on-ramp from nowhere where people used to party, and on its final weekend there was another big party. Pretty sad to see things like that go. People used to also moor little boats they were living on under the bridge by the arboretum.
We found a cosy little spot to hangout by the water, but of course almost as soon as we got there everyone else also decided that it was the place to be, and we hardly got it to ourselves at all. Absolutely shocking that when you go out into public the public is, in fact, also there. On the plus side, Maggie got to bounce around and play with an 8 month old puppy. She also swam! All on leash, of course.
We also saw a bunch of baby ducks! They swam up with their parent and they all settled in and got comfortable on a log. It’s so nice being able to observe wildlife just doing their thing in the middle of a big ol’ city. There’s also turtles here, but we didn’t see any this time. The kids just sort of chilled in the bike trailer. Leeloo did not like when the motorboats and yachts would go by and kick up a wake. She wasn’t scared, but she certainly did not approve. Sieh didn’t seem to be too impressed with it either, but wasn’t too bothered.
As usual, the Waterfront Trail was flooded, so even if they hadn’t had it closed off it’d have been a no-go with Yunnie because of the motors on her wheels. There was some signage indicating that they’re doing work to restore this section, so that’s exciting. As it is, it’s routinely impassable unless you aren’t especially particular about the moisture content of your footwear. It’s really too bad, because it’s an interesting section of the arboretum. It takes you across Foster and Marsh Islands on a combination of graveled paths and boardwalks, and it’s often a good place to get a look at the various herons and other wild life. Definitely looking forward to whatever improvements they make and it being open again.
On our way back towards Wisteria Hall, we passed multiple goose families and the kids didn’t seem at all interested in them! In fact, they didn’t even really seem to notice that they were there. And here I’d thought it would be a nice thing for them to see. Oh, well. One grassy area even had multiple family units herding their babies up out of the water to feed on whatever it is they eat out of the grass. There was a bit of a contentious fight between two of the adults, but everyone eventually chilled the fuck out and decided to do what was right for the kids. They started to get a little close to us, so we headed off.
It was a busy day for all of the arboretum workers, and we saw quite a few of the golf carts that they use zooming around. It was a good opportunity to work on desensitizing Leeloo to motorized vehicles, and she did great, just kept chilling. But it turns out that with my single-sided deafness I really have trouble hearing the carts! My directional hearing is still pretty bad even with my hearing aid, so sometimes even when I heard a motor or someone calling out, I couldn’t tell that it was on the pathway behind us. Thankfully, our friend was on the lookout and had us covered.
We wandered around on some of the smaller trails and eventually ended up at my favourite place in the arboretum: the little dock that goes out over the pond with the Japanese maple. It can actually be really hard to spot if you don’t know it’s there, especially when the plants are all leafed out. When we arrived there was even a high schooler taking graduation pics. Super cute.
We settled in again, and this time we weren’t interrupted by anyone else. It really is practically invisible from the paved trail. We hung out, hydrated, and just chatted. Leeloo elected to stay in bed and try to catch up on all of the beauty sleep she was missing out on, but Sieh eventually decided that he wanted to explore.
I had just finished telling our friend about the time years ago when Sieh jumped off of the boardwalk directly into the North Creek wetland because he thought the duckweed was solid ground WHEN HE DID IT AGAIN. It wasn’t even duck weed this time, or particularly good coverage! I thought he just wanted to climb around on the rocks at the edge of the pond, but NO, he went right into stagnant water up to his chest. Same look of shock and disbelief on his face as the last time it happened.
I scooped him out quickly (and of course I hadn’t remembered to bring any cat wipes), and plunked him back on the dock. Thankfully, he seemed to be in good spirits in spite of his dunking, and still wanted to explore our little space.
Eventually we had to leave, so we headed back to Wisteria Hall. We puttered around a bit, enjoying the ambiance before hitting the bathrooms and loading back up. All in all a successful return to hiking! It certainly may not look the same as it used to, and we for sure won’t be summitting any mountains, but we get to be outside again, we get to see some sights, and we get some fresh air.
Camp Like Noodle 