Adventures in Ballard: Elissa Style

I love Ballard.

 

I love being able to run to the beach at sunrise(See video).  I love taking my son to the farmer's market to buy salmon and halibut directly from the guys that caught the fish. There is an amazing yoga studio, a perfect gym, several great bars and I can watch the boats go through the locks whenever I want. AND one of the best playgrounds in town in just three blocks from my house. 

 I do not love how ridiculously stupid I was in Ballard yesterday.

I was going to the very beach pictured in my sunrise running video for a wonderful early evening service. Knowing that said beach is usually crowded, I decided that my son and I could walk the 1.6 miles to the beach and back (I did not bother to bring bus tokens for the way home because the bus route to the beach takes 20 minutes and involves 1.4 miles of walking) Instead, I brought warm clothes for Sean, a cell phone, a credit card (in case we needed to take a cab to get home), a camera and snacks for the journey. 

Things I did not take into account:

1) 1.6 miles is a very short distance for a 33 year-old marathon runner. 1.6 miles is a marathon distance for a 4 year-old.

2)  Flip-Flops are GREAT walking gear for hanging out on the beach. Flip-flops are horrible shoes for getting to the beach. Flip-Flops are especially bad for moms who are carrying their children down steep dirt staircases to get to the beach. Flip-Flops are even worse for moms who are carrying their children down steep dirt staircases when it starts raining. 

3) When there are clouds in the sky this often means it will rain.  

4) When my 4 year-old, who I had been carrying on my shoulders for an hour, refuses to put on his rain coat this is a good time to take cover.

5) Taking cover at Anthony's restaurant would have been a great idea, if Anthony's restaurant wasn't about a mile from the beach.  

5a) Counting the several available parking spaces, where I could have parked my vehicle, just added insult to injury. 

6) It often stops raining soon after it starts in Seattle, so by the time I got to Anthony's, we had missed the service we were originally going to AND it was now just cloudy and somewhat beautiful outside. 

7) Waterfront seafood restaurants, like Anthony's, do not actually cater towards people in Flip-Flops and jeans who are wet from the rain, and, covered in sweat from long walks carrying their children on their shoulders. (Though, I will say that they were very nice, sat us at a hidden table, right next to the window overlooking the sound. They got us our food quickly and I tipped them WELL)

8)  Cabs in Seattle do not have car seats, so calling a cab to pick me and Sean up from the beach was not particularly well thought out.

9) Calling Tam to come pick us up (which he very graciously did) was a particularly humiliating phone call to make. 

However, having Sean with me made the whole experience a fun adventure instead of a disaster. He was happy the whole time, loved looking at all the trees going to the beach, had fun on his shoulder ride and thought the "fry sticks" at Anthony's were particularly tasty. 

This is Sean's apple juice at Anthony's.  Both the waitress and I were concerned about the cup in came in. She smelled it, and I taste tested it three times before I let Sean drink it. (He probably thought we were weird)