Wednesday, April 23, 2014

#30DaysofScootering: Rolling Up To Redmond


Wednesday is my virtual Saturday so today I took advantage of my free time to scooter up to Redmond. I'd been wanting to go to a used bookstore up there and last night Christine informed me that her coworker Gary got replacement wheels for his scooter at "the scooter shop in Redmond." "There's a scooter shop in Redmond?" "Yep, not scooters like yours. Trick scooters." It doesn't matter, if there's a scooter shop, I'm going to go check it out. Christine had gotten the name from Gary, Pro Scooter Shop. Google told me how to get there.

I roll north under cloudy skies.


Still lots of blossoms on the trees.


The goats are having breakfast.


I roll past the boat landing at the state park. No eagles today.


At the Sammamish city limit, I switch from trail riding to riding on the sidewalk, bike lane and road shoulder.


All the way up to Redmond there is at least a decent shoulder on the road.


On the scooter, I'm prone to stop and check out all the little creeks.


This is kind of pretty, tucked in among the big overflow pipes that keep the parkway from being flooded when the rains get intense.


The shoulder is wide enough for scootering or biking.


When I have a sidewalk, I tend to scoot there.


In Redmond, the paved trail resumes. I take the tunnel under the parkway.


The northern section of the Sammamish Trail is closed because the city is going to be paving it. In a few years we'll have a completely paved trail running all the way from Issaquah to Seattle.


I turn onto the Marymoor Connector Trail.


This map shows the various trails and parks in King County.


Marymoor is the big park in Redmond at the north end of Lake Sammamish.


This little bridge crosses the Sammamish River.


The trail follows the river north.


I turn off in Redmond to see what I find at McDonald's Book Exchange.


Today I found a nifty old paperback collection of creepy stories by Robert Bloch and Ray Bradbury.


I rejoin the trail and cross over the river at 90th Street. I roll over to Willows Road and then up to 95th.


Pro Scooter Shop is a little place tucked away in a business park.


They have a bunch of cool scooters, but none I like better than mine. The Lucky Dirt Scooter: The Warthog (bottom scooter in the picture above) looks super tough.





Except for the Warthog, most of the scooters had smaller wheels than I prefer. But if you're into trick scooters, these guys have you covered.


I roll back toward home.


You can never go too far around here without finding some salmon-themed art.


The Redmond Public Library has decided to go with another Pacific Northwest icon for its bit of sculpture.


I like to check the Friends of the Library shelves for inexpensive for-sale books. Today I come up empty, but I did get to park next to this nifty Dahon folding bike.


Back at the park, I take a couple of pictures of the old windmill.


There are some great old trees here. This used to be an estate.


I roll back towards Issaquah.


At the Sammamish town line, I'm back to riding on the shoulder.


My randonneuring pals help keep this section of road clean.


The main business district of Sammamish is up on the Plateau.


After more miles rolling south, I'm back home.

33 miles of scootering today. The clouds threatened rain all day but aside from a couple of very light sprinkles, I stayed dry. My April total is now up to 209.55 miles of scootering.

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