Juniper was a great tour guide. Give a seven year old a job she can do, and she delivers! It took a bit of convincing to get her to go back to a place she had already been, but when she realized it meant another couple hours playing with Anika, she agreed. We grabbed a lyft to the gates of the park. “This way,” she told us, and walked us through the park towards the locks.
Impeccable timing. We walked up to the locks just as the last small motor boat was loading in to the small lock, ready to head out to sea. After just a moment’s wait, we saw the back gates close. We ran to the front, ready to see the front gates open and let the boats free. It went down so fast! An elevator for boats, I didn’t realize how simple the locks actually are. I always wondered how they make the boats go up and down, but now that I’ve seen it, it’s so simple! They just let it drain slowly down to the lower water level, and down the boats go down like they are on a big floating elevator. The sea-side gates noisily opened up and let their caged passengers free.
It took me a minute to figure out how they make the boats go back UP. They just let the lock fill from the higher river, that’s it! So simple. Paloma explained it to me – I think she’s a bit quicker than I am sometimes…
“Where are the seals?” we asked. Juniper showed us where to look. We walked across the dam looking for them. Down the ramp we went, seeing the pattern of waterfalls on the way down, down to the observation area, like a real-life-wild-salmon aquarium. It was full of fish! We watched them for a while, and as the kids’ teacher this year, I dutifully took advantage of the science lesson splayed out for us on the wall: an illustrated essay about how the fish needed to swim upstream to their birthplace to make their babies. We played popcorn, reading different parts of the lesson. Even Juniper read a bit – the last line – after getting over her initial hesitations. I just remember a little bit: a map showing the 1,700+ rivers in the area. A call to action about how we could help the salmon be safer:
- Help limit city runoff
- Use fewer garden chemicals
- Use soaps with no phosphates
- Use absorbent mulch, not plastic tarps on the gardens, to help the earth soak up the rains
- Let trees grow over the rivers, so the fish can stay cool
I’m hoping the girls remember some of that, too. I think they will remember seeing the dozens of fish outside the ladders waiting for the energy to climb one more set of stairs upstream. Lucky for the fish, there were no seals surrounding for them. Just a flowing and peaceful river presenting a journey ahead.
In classic fashion, the journey back was at least as fun as the one there. Juniper showed us the hills across the river that were perfectly set up for rolling. She didn’t manage to convince a slightly tired and grumpy Paloma to climb up to the top, so we settled for a smaller hill with a climbing tree and a decent rolling place. And then the golden hour arrived and we snapped a few pictures of silly kids playing on the goose-poop littered lawn. Ew, gross. But fun! Cartwheels, handstands, fireman weaves, and playing princess in the shadows of the tall trees.
Once again, Seattle delivered.
