One thing I love about Seattle and the Puget Sound region is all of the neighborhoods and how each one has its own identity and attractions.

I have a wonderful map a former colleague created for me that calls out each and every one as well as an accompanying sheet of things to do and places to eat in many of them.

We haven’t even scratched the surface, but every once in a while we end up checking something off the list.

One of the local neighborhoods we continue to drive through is Ballard, which is northwest of downtown Seattle. We’ve eaten there several times– one of my favorite places is The Walrus and the Carpenter–but until my parents came out to visit we hadn’t made it over to the Chittenden Locks.

Actually, that’s not entirely true. Brian and I experienced the locks when we were here on vacation several years ago, but from the deck of a boat. This time we walked to the locks, crossed the bridge once the boats had passed through and headed over to the fish ladder to see if any fish were still making their way up stream.

Unfortunately we only saw one lonely fish–you have to go earlier in the season for the real activity. Despite the lack of fish we did learn a lot about the locks and watched a video about their history and read the placards all around with information about the locks as well as the fish. At the very least we now know where and when we need to go next year.

Since there wasn’t much going on with the fish or boats we didn’t stay long, but we will be back again!