In the Duv

Duvall, WA ~ Overrun by giraffes, periodically an island, the greatest little city this side of the Atlantic

Duvall Days – The Days of Duvall

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Duvall Days

Every year. First weekend in June. Duvall has its day…s. Duvall Days is next weekend! Our city celebrates its awesomeness. So, if you plan to miss it, be warned. You will live a life filled with regret and die alone.

Some years Duvall Days blows our minds and other years it’s kind of meh. However, even when it’s meh, it’s kind of amazing. We love Duvall Days. And this year looks like the best one we’ve had in many years, maybe ever.

Of course tractors will drive and horses will dance down Main Street. I pray Kathy Lambert notepads will be distributed because my supply is running low. Vendors will be all along the parade route again like last year. But, there are also a few new and exciting things happening.

Here’s a brief look at what’s in store Saturday:

Arts, crafts, and food vendors will set up shop along main street, in the Police Department parking lot, and in McCormick Park.

A mechanical bull will be bucking people off in the Duvall Tavern parking lot from 9am-4pm.

The Big Rock Car Show will be set up in the Safeway parking lot from 9am-4pm. (Stock up on groceries by Friday night because this gets to be crazy town. Fun, crazy town.)

Scavenger hunt, fun/kid/family zones (I think that’s code for bouncy houses and probably water fun), beer gardens.

Parade starts at 10:30 along Main Street.

KCLS will have a library van in the upper area of McCormick park so you can check out library books from a van… down by the river.

There will be a rock climbing wall, zip line, bubble soccer, laser tag, basketball tournament, and a frog jump contest.

You can take a nap at Duvall Co-op Prechool or get your hands duty at the petting zoo.

A photo booth will be set up near the depot building.

You can purchase cow pie bingo tickets on Saturday and watch the live streaming pie drop on Sunday from the comfort of your own home. Running of the Balls down Stewart Street sounds like a blast.

Face painting and tattoos will be administered in the Windermere parking lot. They don’t specify what kind of tattoos will be given.

Blitz, the Seahawks mascot, will make an appearance.

The historic Dougherty Farmstead will be open for tours and Cherry valley Winery will have an art show and wine tasting. Shuttles will be provided.

There will be tons of musical and dance performances and at 10 PM they will detonate things in McCormick park. #fireworks

You can even order food in the evening from local restaurants and have it delivered to you wherever you’re hanging out.

On Sunday:

Race in the REF 5K, 10K, or Kids’ Obstacle race.

Carb load with fire fighters at the pancake breakfast.

Watch the cows make pies on a giant bingo card. Or tour Cherry Valley Dairy and watch the cows make pies there.

There’s tons to do, most of it free. The weather is looking to be perfect. I can’t wait! Check out DuvallDays.org for more details.

What’s the Deal with the Thayer Barn?

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Save the Clock Tower

I’ll come clean here and tell you I have not paid much attention to what’s been going on with the Thayer Barn. I know where it is. I’ve seen the beautiful art around town. I know Duvall loves the Thayer Barn and citizens have donated a ton of money to hopefully restore it. Remember in Back to the Future, how people would interrupt Marty McFly making out with his girlfriend, and ask him to donate money to, “SAVE THE CLOCK TOWER”? The Thayer Barn is Duvall’s clock tower. Minus the making out. And the time travel.

Everyone talks about Thayer Barn as though we all know about it, so you feel silly asking for details.

For example, I say, “What’s the deal with the Thayer Barn?” and someone else replies, “You don’t know about the Thayer Barn? You must hate Duvall and farmers and all of rural America! And I thought I liked you…”

Photos courtesy of Duvall Foundation for the Arts

So, over the past few weeks I researched online and spoke to experts and I think I’m qualified to give a brief introduction to the project and an update on the current status. I’ve included several links in this post so you can read ALL the details of the nearly 30-year saga. I’m giving you the condensed version.

What is the Thayer Barn?

The Thayer Barn, now largely dismantled, rests on Highway 203 diagonally across from the Starbucks complex. It was a kit barn, built in the 1930s by the Thayer Family for their dairy cows. Kit barns are cool. They were ordered by catalog and assembled onsite. This one came from Sears and Roebuck a year before they stopped selling them.

Photos courtesy of Duvall Foundation for the Arts

People in Duvall love this barn. As of 2002 it was the last dairy barn still standing within the Duvall City Limits. At that point, the Duvall Arts Commission* had already been dreaming and planning for 10 years to convert the old girl into a community art center.

**Update from Patricia Chapman – “Our red barn was built in 1906. It was a dairy barn for decades, and is still standing. We are in the city limits of Duvall. The big yellow barn is the only dairy barn with the gambel style roof in the city limits. It was a work of art in the day.”**

To the people of Duvall, the barn represents our heritage as an agricultural community and it connects us to our past. It’s a gorgeous reminder of our roots and people are passionate about preserving it.

What Will the Thayer Barn Become?

Duvall Foundation for the Arts is currently working to convert the Thayer Barn into a community art center. This process officially began in 2000 when the developer who owned the land signed an agreement with the City of Duvall, stating that they would donate the building and a parcel of land to create a city art center/parks department in the middle of their new development.

They had 10 years to make it happen.

The city agreed to put up $200,000 toward the project and in just 4 months DFA raised the $100,000 they had committed to contribute.

Then for the next several years, the developer was on-again/off-again about moving forward with the project. All this time, the barn continued to decay. Time was of the essence and the project took a lot of it.

Photos courtesy of Duvall Foundation for the Arts

As the development plans fell apart, the project stalled indefinitely. Since the project had taken so long to get off the ground, some of those early donors requested their money back, but all the remaining funds are still set aside for the project.

The Saga Continues

Then, in late 2013 a new developer planned to purchase the property, and Duvall Foundation for the Arts picked up the torch and again began talks with the city and the new developer (Westcott Homes) to restart the community art center project.

And it’s happening. It’s just really slow because there are so many steps that need to happen all in the right order.

In order for DFA to apply for additional grant money to build the center, they need to own the land. In order for Westcott homes to deed the land to DFA/The City of Duvall, they have to separate the land into parcels. They can’t separate the land into parcels until they have water/sewer/other infrastructure in place. In order for Westcott to get the infrastructure built, they need the City of Duvall to approve the plans for their development.

Project Manager Elizabeth Hill hopes the city will approve the plans so they can begin installing the infrastructure this summer because there is a small window when this kind of work can be done successfully. If they don’t get the plans approved in time to do it this summer, they’ll likely have to wait until the summer of 2018.

Fingers crossed, City of Duvall!

But It’s Falling Down!

You may have driven by the barn recently and noticed… it’s not standing anymore. You’re right. The barn continued to decay and in 2015 it had to be dismantled.

“So, how can they turn it into a community art center?” you might ask. Good question. It’s not going to be turned into a community art center so much as it’s going to be honored and partially preserved in a community art center. Plans are currently in place to preserve what remains of the Thayer Barn and pieces of it will be used in the interior structure of the new community art center, which will be built in a similar style.

Specifically, they hope to install the north face of the barn in the upstairs interior of the new building.

DFA Wants to Hear From You

Here’s a link to the preliminary plans. They’re currently seeking community input about how to design the interior of the building to meet the artistic needs of the community. Meetings are from 11-1 most Saturdays at Match Coffee and Wine Bar. You can email DFA with questions or input.

Personally, I’m excited to see a beautiful location for local theater and dance productions and a gallery space for local artists.

To preserve what remains of the barn, plans are moving forward to install a massive cover. The cover needs a moveable ecology block foundation to be built to hold it in place and it will be installed by Dan Cook, the same contractor who disassembled the barn and preserved the north face. When the foundation’s in place, the cover supplier will install the cover.

It’s just a ton of work and I’m amazed at how well it’s all coming together. What a persistent team of volunteers and what an awesome legacy they’re building!

The designs have been created with the developer who’s building the condo development. When it’s completed, the city will own the utilities, road, sidewalks, and parking lot. Duvall Foundation for the Arts will own the land and the building.

You Can Still Donate

If you’d like to contribute to the project, you can do so from their website and, since they’re a 501c3, they’re eligible for corporate matching. They also have a few of these beautiful giclee prints of a painting by Vicki Perry available for $50 each (unframed) or $250 (framed). Anyone interested should contact Deanna.

Reproduced from the Original Painting by Vicki Perry with Permission

Currently the best place to go for project updates is this page, last updated in March of 2017.  Elizabeth says future updates will be uploaded there.

Here is an excellent explanation of the DFA and the Art Center history

Art Center FAQ

*An explanation of the difference between the Arts Commission, the Cultural Commission, and DFA From Elizabeth Hill

“The Duvall Arts Commission was formed when the barn project was first imagined by Sunny Ruthchild. The idea of the Arts Commission was to support the development of an arts center and the arts in general. I was appointed along with others to that first Art Commission.

Relatively quickly after that it became clear that what we really needed was an Art Foundation because the Commission was not a non-profit and therefore could not give potential donors receipts for tax deductions. Also, the commission was associated with the City and could not actively fundraise for the art center. We looked around to see what other communities had done to address these challenges and then developed Duvall Foundation of the Arts. It was Huston Barclay who did the work to establish DFA as a 501C3 to raise money for the arts center/barn project and for the arts in general.

“Later the City morphed the Arts Commission into the Cultural Commission.

DFA continues to work on the art center project, DFA puts on Sandblast every year as a gift to the community. DFA also puts on Art in Bloom and provides scholarships for people to pursue art and music educational opportunities. The vision we had as a community of having a non-profit foundation for the arts all those years ago has paid off and has contributed to Duvall’s thriving art community.”

As always, if you find any inaccuracies in this post, please tell me in the comments. I love learning about our town.

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. This means, I may receive a small commission if you choose to purchase something from a link I post. Don’t worry, it costs you nothing. Thank you for supporting my website!

March of the Vegetables

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I had to go. How could I not? You had me at “people dressed up as vegetables.” You had me. At. “People dressed up as vegetables.”

If you ask anyone who knows me well, they will tell you that my single favorite exhibitor in any valley parade for the last ten years was a man dressed up as a stalk of corn at the Carnation 4th of July Parade. I became obsessed with seeing him again. Obsessed.

And last year’s Duvall Days heralded the first human corn in several years. It cheered my heart.

So, when I heard about March of the Vegetables, I was stoked. It’s a parade focused on art and agriculture and community, celebrating creativity and the return of the growing season for local farms and gardeners.

I’ve been following news and announcements for the past couple of months leading up to Saturday’s March of the Vegetables. I knew people were making art. I knew people were planning to march. I had no idea there would be a band of musical vegetables playing “I Heard it Through the Grapevine.”

That was just icing.

Over a hundred people in handcrafted costumes marched down 1st Avenue smiling, waving, cheering, showing off their art and celebrating their favorite vegetables.

Some costumes were cute.

Others beautiful.

They were all creative.

One woman handed out hand-colored packets of beet seeds she’d saved from her own garden. Could these be cuter? No. The answer is no.

And I love that we’re glorifying growth and community and nutritious foods. It was seriously magical and odd and endearing in a way only Duvall could pull off.

I hope they do it again next year. I may be forced to join in on the fun.

Riverview School District Boundary Changes

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I have a child at Cherry Valley Elementary and I live close-ish to one of the rumored boundary changes so I went to the meeting tonight, a forum to discuss redoing the elementary school boundaries.

Citizens of Duvall, rest at ease. The boundary changes only affect 2 houses with families living in them, neither of which have children.

The red line shows the current boundary between Cherry Valley and Stillwater. The horizontal red line is Big Rock Road. Everything above and to the left of the red line is currently zoned for Cherry Valley Elementary. Everything below and to the right of the red line is currently zoned for Stillwater Elementary. The dark blue line shows the proposed new boundary.

The affected neighborhoods currently under development are highlighted in yellow. The blue highlighted areas are developments that will go in later.

Again, no current students at either school will be affected by the boundary changes.

The most interesting question to be answered at the meeting, aside from boundary clarifications and growth questions, was about the possibility of a later start time for schools in our district. Superintendant Anthony Smith confirmed that he will be recommending a 15 minute later start time beginning next year for all schools in Riverview School District.

I don’t have a ton more information on either of these topics but you can always reach out to Dr. Smith for clarification. We have a very knowledgeable and caring district staff and school board. They have the best interests of Riverview kids and families in mind.

Also, speaking of schools, here’s a picture of me from Junior High.

The END

More in-depth info about the meeting and the proposed changes can be found here.

Glossary of Duvall Terms

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Today I tackle a Glossary of Duvall Terms. If you’re new to Duvall, you’re bound to hear terms or phrases thrown around that make little or no sense to you.

“Traffic was so bad, they had to use the pickle”

“What about the giraffes?”

“I think the event is in the old library.”

Some of these terms have been around a while and others are fairly new. The echo chamber on the community Facebook groups helps build popularity and momentum around terms that might otherwise disappear fairly quickly.

I asked discussion board participants which terms they’d include in a glossary for this page and the answers came pouring in. There were several things I had never heard before. But then, as stated previously, I’m a transplant of a mere 11 years. I’m hoping one of the Old Timers will take up my offer to write a guest post of glossary of terms for us newcomers.

I can’t possibly cover everything today. But, in no particular order besides alphabetical, here are a few to get started:

The App – There is a Windows App that links to Jim Gale’s Duvall Mobile Flood and Snowmageddan page. It gives you everything you need to know about impending doom. Traffic cameras. Flood predictions. School and road closures. Power outages. Search “Duvall Mobile Flood” in the app store.

Big Rock Park – Sometimes misslabeled “Big Rock State Park,” or referred to as the smallest State Park in Washington, the park is adorably tiny, but it’s a county park. It’s composed of the big rock that Big Rock Road is named after, 2 large sequoia trees, and a picnic bench. [Read more]

The Depot – The Depot is the old railroad building down by the entrance to McCormick Park. Technically it’s part of its own park, creatively named Depot Park. I’ll have to do a future post all about the history. I do know it was donated by Ray and Tove Burhen. You can rent it for events, but not birthday parties. Birthday parties are forbidden.

Duvall Island/Lake Duvall – When the valley floods, usually in the spring or fall, we get a gorgeous body of water between 203 and Snoqualmie Valley Road. Lake Duvall. If the flood is bad enough to close 124th, Woodinville-Duvall Road, and 203 in both directions, we are cut off from the world and become Duvall Island.

Giraffes – The unofficial spirit animal and mascot of Duvall. It was first introduced into Duvall culture when King County built a controversial animal bridge over Novelty Hill Road. Find more detailed information here.

Green Park/Toddler Park/Tot Lot/Judd Park – These are all the same place. On the corner of 150th and 275th stands a park with green play structures. It’s named after former mayor Lloyd Judd. It’s a big meetup spot for families with young kids and also bored middle schoolers who don’t know where to hang out.

The Hub – Redemption Church’s gathering place on Main Street in the building that, until recently, housed a bank. You can see their trailer parked out front with pictures of the beautiful Glover family on the side. This one is relatively new but I’ve heard several people refer to it as though everyone knew what it was, so I thought it deserved a mention.

Is 124th Open? – Did they close 124th across the valley due to flooding? This matters for a couple of reasons, probably the biggest of which is, if 124th is closed, traffic in and out of Duvall will be a nightmare. They might even need to bring out “The Pickle.” (see below)

Old Library – The adorable red building in the heart of Main Street between The Grange and the Wild Fish Conservancy. This was the King County library in Duvall when we first moved here and it now serves as the Duvall Visitor Center. It frequently hosts community craft fairs and other events and is available to rent.

The Parade – Duvall Days. The festive celebration of everything Duvall. We head over to Carnation for 4th of July festivities. Around the 4th of June each year, citizens of Carnation head to Duvall to celebrate with us. Tractors, drill teams, librarians, elected officials, dancing horses, free Kathy Lambert paper. The Duvall Days parade has everything.

Pickle or Pickling – From the Duvall Police Department Facebook Page: ”This refers to a small, hand held electronic device which an Officer can plug in to the control box at the intersection of Main and Virginia. The ‘pickle’ allows the Officer to manipulate the light cycles at that intersection to maximize traffic flow during times of road closures, especially floods.” There are never not complaints about pickling when it happens. It only happens when traffic is already horrible so people can’t tell if the manual traffic control makes things better or worse; they just know it took them two hours to drive home from work.

The River – If someone says, “Let’s hang out at the river,” chances are REAL good they’re talking about the sandy beach in McCormick park, just down from the police station parking lot and the Depot. On summer days it is packed with babies eating sand, elementary school kids digging really large holes, and tweens and teens awkwardly flirting. It also houses the Sandblast every year.

Rose Room – Housed in the basement of The Old Library, the Rose Room is a meeting area with tables and chairs and a small kitchenette. It doubled as a break room for library staff and the location of Story Time and other meetings. It takes a talented librarian to keep kids’ attention when they’re sitting on mismatched spinning office chairs in a basement room with no wall hangings and a dated kitchen directly in their line of vision.

Windstorm – When people tell Tales about a big windstorm, most often they refer to December 2006 when much of Duvall lost power for a week or longer leading up to Christmas. It was COLD and it was DARK and at our house we refer to it as the Attack of the Ents. Tony Gill says, “We were officially out of power for 10 days and 8 hours (to the exact minute).”

People who have lived here a little longer may be referring to the Inauguration Day Storm of January 1993. I still lived in Canada at that point and had no idea about a storm and not much idea about an inauguration RE: Immigrant. So I’ll leave it to others to tell that story.

Woody-Du/Woo-Du/The WD – So many creative ways to refer to “Woodinville-Duvall Road”. It has too many syllables. Everyone knows this, but no one has the guts to make a permanent change. I think we should call it Ernie.

Below are a few more terms I plan cover in another installment of this glossary. Do you have any other suggestions?

Holiday Heifer/Christmas Cow
The Mountain is Out
Christmas Reference to Taylor’s Ridge
The Valley
Downtown
The Twisties
The Silver Spoon
Mallowmars
Piano Drop
The Trail
Thayer Barn

As always, if you find any inaccuracies in this post, please tell me in the comments. I love learning about our town.

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. This means, I may receive a small commission if you choose to purchase something from a link I post. Don’t worry, it costs you nothing. Thank you for supporting my website!

Duvall Giraffes

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Newcomers to Duvall frequently ask, “What’s the deal with the giraffes?”

They are everywhere. On Facebook. In conversation. At the Christmas celebration. On bumper stickers. On T-shirts. Giraffes are a Thing in the City of Duvall.

Should they be a Thing? It’s debatable. When I recently polled the Duvall Community Discussion Board for words to include in a glossary of Duvall-related terms, reactions were mixed.

Several people called for the inclusion of giraffes in the glossary. Others openly mocked the Duvall Giraffe hype, calling it stupid and blaming its existence on “transplants”. Transplants vs. Old Timers remains a fertile field of debate that I will explore in a later post. From what I can tell, you need to have lived in the valley for at least 93 years before people stop gently ribbing you about being an outsider. I will keep you informed.

I’ve lived here for 11 years. So, in Duvall Old Timer culture, I’m basically an annoying cousin camped out on the city’s couch because I ran out of gas on my way to Bothell. They’re not sure how long I’ll be here and they certainly wouldn’t call the arrangement permanent. So, what do I know about Duvall?

Honestly, not that much. However, I moved here before the giraffes so I believe I have a handle on the basic story behind their popularity.

And it’s a story that doesn’t even take place in Duvall.

To tell this story, we’re going to need to travel into unincorporated King County. Hold on to your tractors, Old Timers. It’s a bumpy ride.

In early 2012 King County announced a massive project to create a wildlife bridge across Novelty Hill Road in the Redmond Ridge area. The area experienced frequent animal-vehicle collisions and the bridge would attempt to reduce those by re-routing animals over the road, rather than across it.

Remember the Wolves-Only Roadway from The West Wing? It was like that.

Reactions to this project were decidedly mixed and people passionately spoke out either for or against the overpass. King County held meetings, attended by members of Duvall and other communities, and then decided to go ahead with what they planned to do in the first place. The project was paid for with federal grants totaling nearly six million dollars.

Drama on the Discussion Board

In a shocking turn of events, conversations got heated on the Duvall Community Discussion Board. Gasp. Before long, sarcasm was employed, and eventually it led to a crap-storm of memes. What were the memes about?

**The original giraffe/bridge photoshop creation came from Jeremiah Judd, according to the Duvall Historical Society. You can view the image at that link. More information can also be found here. Thanks, Bairavi!**

You see, human people were upset that King County was spending so much money on a project to build Animal Roads, when the People Roads in and out of Duvall left so much to be desired. Why should we spend millions of dollars to improve the commute of the deer and the bears and the freakin’ giraffes when my human commute sucks river rocks?

The counter to that was, of course, we are improving People Roads by stopping all the animals from throwing themselves in front of your cars and causing accidents.

As people joked about the need to build the bridge to protect ALL the creatures of the earth, the image of giraffes crossing the bridge along with local species captured the imaginations of the citizens of Duvall.

And the meme storm began.

Even the Duvall Police Department got in on the fun. (They generally bring the fun, so it’s not that big of a surprise.) You can always count on the Duvall Police Department to have a quality photoshopped giraffe picture ready to deploy on Facebook.

Giraffe bumper stickers, signs, and t-shirts began popping up around town. And as each year goes by, giraffes become more and more of an integral part of our community. Love them or hate them, they’re here to stay.

At the Riverview Education Foundation auction last weekend, they held a massive rock-paper-scissors competition with all the attendees. It was epic. It was hard fought. It was probably a game invented by a transplant. The prize was a Duvall Giraffe.

A few fun facts:

Three years ago, Jeremiah Judd started a petition to make the giraffe the official mascot of our fair city. He delivered the petition to the city but, as far as I can tell, no official action was ever taken.

Giraffes have been in the Duvall public consciousness for a while now. The first mention I find of giraffes and Duvall is at a city council meeting in 2010, when giraffes were given to staff and city council members as a thank-you gift for “sticking their necks out” working on the Main Street Reconstruction Project.

Whenever we talk about giraffes, I think about this SNL sketch.

A band called Giraffe Tongue Orchestra has a lead singer named William Duvall. You can learn all about them when you Bing “Duvall Giraffes”.

Follow InTheDuv on Facebook or sign up for email updates. I’ll update you on some of the events and activities happening in Duvall and get to the bottom of a few of our city’s little mysteries.

As always, if you find any inaccuracies in this post, please tell me in the comments. I love learning about our town.

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. This means, I may receive a small commission if you choose to purchase something from a link I post. Don’t worry, it costs you nothing. Thank you for supporting my website!

A Hawaiian Vacation in Duvall

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I was at a basketball game in Bothell last weekend when an old college roommate called me out of the blue. She and a friend were headed from Salt Lake City to Hawaii with standby tickets for the long weekend. But they’d gotten stuck in Seattle and couldn’t get a flight out to the islands.

So, she asked if they could come stay with us instead. Duvall is almost like Hawaii, right?

While they drove their rental car from the airport, we stopped by a party store in Woodinville and picked up some leis and Hawaiian décor items. We pumped the ukulele tunes and did our best to give them a little piece of the islands right here in The Duv.

How do you have a Hawaiian vacation in Duvall? I’m glad you asked.

If the weather is sunny, you head down to The River, aka the sandy beach in McCormick Park, dip your toes in the sand and feel the gentle breeze on your face. To maintain the tropical illusion, don’t ever EVER touch the frigid water.

After the beach, head up to C.C.’s for some ice cream.

The weather was cold and wet last weekend so we just went straight for the treats. One of our guests has a severe gluten allergy, so she asked the ladies at C.C.’s to open a new container of ice cream from the back and use a fresh scoop that hadn’t come into contact with any cones.

They graciously agreed and even sold us a gluten-free cookie to go with our Maui Waui.

The staff at C.C.’s are always awesome and accommodating and we love their ice cream. Remember late last fall when the weather prognosticators predicted the biggest wind storm in 100 years, so CCs gave everyone in Duvall free ice cream, “in case the power went out and everything melted”? And then the wind blew for ten seconds and the sun came out? And we felt okay about the lack of storm excitement because we were so full of free ice cream? Good times.

We shopped along Main Street and when one friend said, “What I really wanted to do in Hawaii was stand under a waterfall,” we gave her a waterfall. A good one. Just a few miles up the valley. She did not stand under it. Because of death.

If the weather had been better, we could have hiked up to Cherry Creek Falls.

Eventually we made our way by bridge over to the “big island” for some pineapple, pulled pork, and flying fish.

Not Hawaii. But, not bad.

How would you create a faux-Hawaiian vacation in Duvall?

Big Rock Park – The Smallest King County Park in Washington State

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I’ve heard all kinds of things about the tiny park next to Safeway as you enter Duvall. We moved here in 2006, when Safeway was already a thing and Big Rock Road was no longer the site of a noticeably large rock. The road’s name, at that time, was a mystery to me.

Every time I’d drive along Big Rock Road, I’d look for the large boulder. At one point, someone convinced me that the oversized pebble marking the entrance to Big Rock Field WAS the Big Rock… and I was underwhelmed. Because, when you name an entire road after the largeness of a certain landmark, size is important.

Big Rock FIELD is the sports field on the north side of Big Rock Road just past Roney. It is home to two baseball fields, a skate park where kids can participate in legal graffiti and pretend not to smoke, a giant soccer field surrounded by trees so the sports players’ younger siblings can go Lord of the Flies in the woods, and a playground structure.

Big Rock PARK, which you may remember is the actual subject of this post, consists of a giant rock, two sequoia trees, and a picnic table. It’s at the end of a dead-end road next to a grocery store parking lot. It welcomes you to our city. The famous Duvall 1913 sign is posted here as you enter town from the south.

Several people have told me that it’s the smallest state park in Washington. It is not. Sometimes it’s referred to as “Big Rock State Park” online. That is not its name.

According to SeattleTimes.com, Big Rock Park was acquired by King County in 1952, and then in 1974 they renamed what was then J.D. Mercer Road to Big Rock Road.

At that time, Big Rock Road ran right past the park, to the south of the now-existing Safeway complex. Eastbound traffic ran on one side of the park and westbound traffic on the other. Hence, the road’s name made sense… RE: it was divided by a large rock.

Now, if you’d like to visit the park, and you really should because it’s awesome, you head up Big Rock Road from 203 and turn right just past Safeway onto NE 140th Street. Follow it for 30 seconds until it dead ends at the park.

Have a picnic and let your kids climb the giant rock until they fall and break a limb. Then enjoy looking up at the impressive sequoia trees. There are several stories about the origin of the trees, since they are not native to the Pacific Northwest.

From the Times article:

“Probably the most accurate [story] is that T.R. Hopkins provided the sequoia seedlings, sometime in the early 1900s. A horticulturist and nurseryman who ran a small tree farm in Duvall, Hopkins was considered a sort of Johnny Appleseed of the Pacific Northwest.
Another yarn has a couple of schoolteachers from Duvall visiting in California in the early 1900s and bringing the sequoia seedlings from there.

Others suggest Leo Herzog, a friend of Hopkins, helped plant the trees. Still others say Leo Leyde, who lived on Northeast Big Rock Road decades ago, planted the trees.”

I like to imagine that they walked here as babies and stopped to rest under the shade of the Big Rock, only to feel a little silly when they grew so much taller than their adopted glacial erratic mother. At that point, their root systems were too large to relocate and they were forced to stay there forever, watching people return carts at Safeway. Or NOT return them. The trees don’t judge. They simply observe.

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As always, if you find any inaccuracies in this post, please tell me in the comments. I love learning about our town.

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Duvall Tree Lighting 2016

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The Duvall Christmas Tree done been lit.

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And then it was unlit. And then lit again. But wait, no. Not so much. Unlit.

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This happened several times and then people headed back to their cars in good spirits, confident that Public Works would get to the bottom of the mystery. These are the hazards you face in a city where the air is constantly breathing its moist mouth breath all over you and your children and your electrical circuits.

We should ask the Darringtons to count down from 10 again. If that doesn’t work, maybe we can switch back to lighting the huge evergreen tree near the entrance to McCormick Park. Remember how it used to shine like a gigantic glowing pickle, standing on end at the base of Stephens? Sweet memories.

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Last evening started with a new and exciting twist on previous years’ events. It was announced that Santa and Mrs. Claus would travel down Main Street at 6pm, lighting the Christmas lights as they went. If I remember correctly, Santa normally goes stag to this event and he arrives by fire engine.

So, at 6pm we all stood around on street corners along 203, in front of the Old Armadillo BBQ and the old quilt shop and the old book store and the old library and the old Duvall Church, waiting and excited.

When what to our wondering eyes should appear but a Duvall police car making its way through rush hour traffic with lights flashing, as a person in a Grinch costume prowled nearby. Close behind them, the cutest ever Santa and Mrs. Claus stood on a sleigh being towed by the vintage True Value Hardware truck, smiling and waving as they commuted home with the rest of the Duvall workforce.

As they approached a particular block, the Christmas lights were not lit. But as they left the block, the lights were glowing. Like magic, pretty much.

If you’ve never been to the Duvall Tree Lighting, you’re missing out, and not because it’s a huge spectacular spectacle of epic proportions, but mostly because it’s not and everyone still goes and loves it and it feels like home.

I was talking to a friend at the event last night and he said, “It kind of feels like a family reunion every year.” And it does. If a Rockefeller Center or Westlake Center tree lighting ceremony is like the old Microsoft company picnics back when the corndogs and Indian food and bouncy houses were flowing like the Snoqualmie river in November, then the Duvall Tree Lighting is like eating peanut butter sandwiches your great aunt made, while sitting on a park bench and wondering where all your little cousins’ pants went.

The sandwiches taste good, you like your cousins, and they’re cute running through the sprinkler, but seriously, where are their pants?

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There are certain staples every year, like the opportunity to take a picture with the Holiday Heifer. Inexplicably, in ten years I have never been able to convince my kids to do this. They think it’s weird. Well, I think they’re weird. So, I guess we’re even.

There are the Little League carnival games that remind you that, “Seriously? It’s time to sign up for spring baseball already?” Yep. It is. Now throw these rings over a few bottles and win a sticky hand, why don’t ya?

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Hot drinks from the churches. Liquid sugar to warm you up, religion to warm your soul.

They always have a tent full of hay so kids can gleefully jump in and throw said hay in order to then become angry because hay is touching them.

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Usually Duvall Performing Arts has something up their sleeve. This year it was reindeer candy cane crafts and matching reindeer dancers.

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Cherry Valley Elementary choir always performs. They blew our faces off this year with their well-prepared holiday musical stylings. Props to Mrs. Farley. And the kids, I suppose.

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There are carolers and dance numbers and emergency vehicles. So many emergency vehicles. And the fire engine and the patrol car and the aid cars are not there in case of emergency. They’re there so the first responders can have yet another opportunity to connect with the community. I’d say my positive to negative interaction with our police and firefighters and paramedics is about 30:1.

Okay 31:1 because rather than nefariously and illegally speeding through the eternal 20 MPH speed zone around Judd Park and getting pulled over yesterday, I chose instead to sit in the patrol car at the tree lighting and flip the red and blue lights off and on repeatedly while an officer smiled and offered me a sticker.

The Duvall PD Christmas giraffe glowed proudly in the background.

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And it’s all included with the price of admission, which is free.

When I walked around at the tree lighting last night, it occurred to me that I probably knew at least one in four people at the event. That’s part of what makes it so special. We’re a small and tight-knit community. If you’re new or just haven’t engaged before, hang out at the library, sign your kids up for sports, come to a few events, volunteer at one of the schools, shop in town, or audition for a CCT play. In short order, you’ll be hip to the family reunion vibe as well.

The annual tree-lighting is a can’t-miss event put on by and attended by an army of volunteers and friends who love our city and know what makes it great. Us. All of us. And the heifer.

The tree is probably, most likely, almost for surely lit at this point.

Christmas is now.

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