photo by Ballard Avenue

This impressive lion, along with three brothers (you see one in the background), guard the overpass over the approach road to the Lions Gate Bridge in Stanley Park. Four lions, one overpass. Seems like a bit of overkill to me but we’ll just let the Canadians be Canadians today.

photo by Ballard Avenue

This Vancouver Police harbour patrol boat was racing out to sea. We never did find out what the fuss was all about. Fresh donuts at Tim Horton's, perhaps?

photo by Ballard Avenue

Ain't that the truth. There'll be no swimming here for a few hours. We went to Vancouver, BC, recently and found the tide way out.

photo by Ballard Avenue

Not sure who owns 'em, but all three were heading to sea the other day. These are the large boats that work off the Alaskan coast. Fair seas and following winds, lads, and we'll soon see you back on shore.

photo by Ballard Avenue

Buster and Newman hang out at the corner of 26th and 62nd. Say hi if you see them.

photo by Ballard Avenue

What's good for the turtle is good for the sea lion.

photo by Ballard Avenue

These crows were fussing over the apples on the tree. Guys, they're a month away from ripe. There being no bellyache like a green apple bellyache, you might as well go and hang out at the ferry dock and see if you can scrounge some french fries.

photo © Filippo Alfero / LaPresse

Why a Fiat 500? This is the 500th post on Ballard Avenue and I thought it should be commemorated with something Italian and red. We enjoyed a bottle of a very nice Valpolicella with dinner last night. And then I found this picture of a race of Fiat 500s. Ché follia bella! Sort of like what keeping a blog is.

I heard once that half of all blogs peter out after five postings, and most of the rest don't get to 50, let alone 500. So 500 Ballard Avenues is either testimony to a previously undetected streak of perseverance in me or testimony that I really don't have enough to do with my time. You make the call.

I can't promise I'll get to 5000 (at my regular rate of posting that would take around 18 years), but I think I'll continue on with this beautiful madness for awhile. You've been warned...

photo by Ballard Avenue

Sorry about the striptease photos. We've got new ones but they're still in the camera awaiting downloading, Photoshopping, Flickrizing, and Bloggeration. Whew! That's work just writing about it, let alone doing it all. So in their stead please accept this photo of a turtle lazing the sunny day away down at Golden Gardens.

photo by Ballard Avenue

The other photos of the Adams Elementary striptease didn't work out, so we head a little farther down the block to the Ballard Community Center for this picture of an artichoke in their little garden. I don't know if this is a world record artichoke, but I do know it's one big-ass artichoke, and the bees like it, too. Considering that it's tough to be a bee these days, let's give a big hand to our little apian friends who do so much for us!

And don't worry, we'll resume the striptease soon.

photo by Ballard Avenue

Adams Elementary has started to reveal the goods hidden under the black plastic. Here we see a mosaic of the Olympic Mountains that lie to the west of Ballard. So far, so good.

photo by Ballard Avenue

While we loves us the lions at the Art Institute of Chicago, when it comes to stone cool cats, the lions at the New York Public Library rule. The lions have had many names over the years, but during the Great Depression New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia named them Patience and Fortitude, after the qualities New Yorkers would show during those hard years. If truth be told, he could have just as well named them Smart-Aleck and Wise-Ass, both also useful qualities to have in the Big Apple.

photo by Ballard Avenue

Ballard had the Seafood Fest a couple weekends ago. Everybody comes to downtown for music, crafts, and to stand around and eat. The Slimpickins were busking on Market Street. They know their way around old ragtime jazz, and who wouldn't love the stylin' silver bass.

photo by Ballard Avenue

Maybe it was these folks who lost the shovel. This whole family and their friends spent hours building dams on one of the little creeks that run into Puget Sound at Golden Gardens park. The kids were learning all about engineering—what you can do and can't do and the costs and rewards of both—and the dads were having fun.

photo by Ballard Avenue

Lose a shovel? There's one floating in the duck pond down at Golden Gardens.

Lose a blog? Well, we did but we've found it again.