With my daughter in a day camp in Seattle this week, I've had the opportunity to do some bicycle day-tripping around the area.
On Wednesday, as I headed north on the old Interurban right-of-way toward Shoreline and Edmonds, I stumbled across a series of signs posted along the bike trail like a picturesque Burma Shave advertisement.
They're not trailside billboards, however. They're FlipBooks, a bit of trailside artwork created by local artist Jennifer Dixon.
Just like a flipbook that you hold in your hand, the images change slightly as you progress along the trail so there's a sensation of movement as you pass.
The five series of FlipBooks have a Northwest theme. The one above shows a swimming fish. Others show an erupting volcano, a deer (elk?) with antlers sprouting flowers, a tree blossoming.
Here's the official explanation posted on the display by the Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs:
“FlipBooks celebrates the quintessential splendors of the Pacific Northwest through a larger-than-life flipbook-style animation and invites users of the trail to experience a sense of movement and play along the public right-of-way.”
Finding FlipBooks
The FlipBooks can be found along a completed stretch of the Interurban Trail between 110th and 128th streets roughly along Linden Avenue.
The trail sits on the right-of-way of the old Interurban Trolley that ran between Ballard and Everett until 1939. Upgrading this route into a bike trail has been an ongoing project in the cities through which it passes — Seattle, Shoreline, Edmonds, Montlake Terrace, Lynnwood and Everett. The portion in north Seattle was completed in 2006.
If you're heading this way, check out the Seattle North bicycle map, King County bicycle map #1, and the Snohomish County Interurban Trail map (these are all .pdf files). Bring a street map too, and some patience to find some routes that are missing signs.
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