Toward the end of the day Monday I set off from the Inner Harbour in search of this city park which was said to contain several large totem poles. The pictures didn’t turn out very well as they were almost all taken looking towards the setting sun. I will be making another post specifically about totem poles later, as I have seen many in different locations during my journey but want to do more research into their meaning and significance to the indigenous people who create them before I share it with you.
Thunderbird Park, once I finally found it, is located very close to Beacon Hill Park, a huge city park which offers many types of activities and open spaces. I went in it and walked around a bit. At one point I was approached by these two friendly black squirrels, undoubtedly looking for a handout:
Unfortunately I had nothing to offer them.
When I decided I was getting tired and had better get back to my car is when things went awry. Although I hadn’t walked all that far to get to the Park from the Inner Harbour I got very confused about my sense of direction and ended up way off course. And I mean WAY off course. At one point I walked toward what appeared to be the harbour only to find that it was where the enormous cruise ships dock (and I STILL don’t know exactly where that is!).
I walked and walked through nice residential neighborhoods with pretty landscaping and flower gardens. My knees were beginning to let me know they weren’t happy with me (a repeat performance after a long day of walking around Seattle only a few days earlier) and you don’t know how happy I was to see a sign near a hotel for the Water Taxi, many of which I had seen buzzing around the harbour during the day.
I got on board and when I told the operator that I wanted to go to the government buildings near the harbour. He told me that it would be a while before he could do that as he had to take other customers to other locations first. I said that was fine, just so I didn’t have to walk anymore!
I ended up with just over 27,000 steps for the day, which I believe eclipses my earlier high numbers in Quebec City and Ottawa in eastern Canada back in 2019. My total just three days earlier in Seattle was just over 18,900.
I was one tired buckaroo when I finally got home, and slept very well that night!
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