The Avondale grows quiet

This afternoon on the way home from a movie we stopped by the church to help with post-sale cleanup. There didn't seem to be much to do (or I just managed to be at the right place at the right time) but we had plenty of time to chat and catch up, since I missed both of the last two Sundays thanks to my travel and Eyjafjallajökul (however one pronounces that, it's the volcano in Iceland). And doubly more important for me because after tomorrow I will miss two more Sundays due to travel (one week in Greensboro NC and the following in Germantown MD).

Even better, I finally got to meet one of our newer members, a sweet Lithuanian lady who arrived in Seattle the same day as the altar, two days later she learned about its arrival and so she was present on our first service with it Palm Sunday. And I think every Sunday since; she felt that sense of "parish family" among us and she fits right in! She offered Kathy some plants from her garden so we got to spend an hour and more visiting with her at her delightful new house here in the Pacific Northwest.

(And I was reminded more than once that I need to open up shop again on the "portrait studio": we have a number of "new" members who've not had photos taken for the members' board I still have not prepared -- just a wee dispute here over the size of photos needed and how big the bulletin board would need to be. I need to prepare samples for evaluation.)

But in the midst of it all, somebody noted how much quieter Avondale Road had become. When we first built the church in 1986, Avondale was still a somewhat rural road without much traffic. Since then the area has become suburbia and there is a fair amount of traffic even on Sunday mornings. Due to Seattle's very mild climate, we don't have or need air-conditioning so we like to open the windows from late spring to early autumn -- but this lets in road noise, particularly from the side nearest Avondale. And that has become a problem over the past decade or more.

A year or two ago we learned that the county was planning some kind of trial to make Avondale quieter and they wanted input from nearby residents. We're not residents but are affected by the noise, so we submitted comments too. I never heard more, but there was some (needed) repaving done a few months ago. Apparently while I was gone they came and cut narrow stripes in the newpavement (the final step in quieting the roadway?) and yes, it seems quieter.

We'll know in a few weeks.