Madison Park Oughta Start Taking Reservations

On an impulse we have now filed in the "a supposedly fun thing we'll never do again" category, we decided to bike down to Madison Park from Capitol Hill this afternoon, with the temperature hovering around 90. Coasting down, the wind in our hair, passing grumpy motorists, we were asking ourselves why we don't do this more often.

Then we arrived.

We don't think we've ever seen the park so crowded. It was end-to-end people. They were claiming space on the grass all the way up the hill, right next to the street where SUVs prowled looking for parking spots. A steady stream of beachwear made its way between the park and anywhere selling cold drinks. Out on the raft, it looked standing room only.

We'd already put in a few hours of sun worship for the day, so after a few minutes we turned around and headed back, threading through the bottleneck of trying-to-park traffic. An SUV was climbing up the rear bumper of a little old lady in a Caddy, who was going to wait as long as it took for someone to pull out of a space. It turns out the way back is the steep, uphill portion of the ride. Even with eight gears that stretch from 30th to 15th is a bit of a push.