When I became an all-day-dad I learned that a soothing, cheap way to entertain a bored baby, exercise an energetic dog, and to fight stir craziness was to pack everybody into their atmospheric appropriate gear and blast off for the outer park system. In San Francisco we lived next to Golden Gate Park, and I believe that as a result of our many walks, my infant daughter will forever dream of its massive trees and sandy loam. Perhaps it will be her mental "safe place" to which she flees when her outer world is completely controlled by religious fundamentalists and sexy, sexy robot overlords.
Now we live in Seattle and we regularly hike Lincoln Park's ridge overlooking Puget Sound, where we watch the Vashon ferries expel cars onto West Seattle's shore, like so many rabbit pellets. We've built a routine around packing everyone into the car, driving through the excellent Sleepless Coffee, and then exploring another piece of the park system. As it approaches warmer weather the wading pools are being filled and prepped for kids in swimming diapers (which so aren't waterproof), I wonder if this summer might be the one in which my lilly-white engineer's chest makes its first appearance in daylight in over half a decade.
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