We leave the house on bikes with empty bags in hopes of finding some interesting mushrooms. A few blocks from home purple plums litter the sidewalk. We take a few from the tree and continue towards the arboretum. A few blocks further we find a very tall pear tree that is drooping with fruit. We manage to shake a few loose and they bounce down the stairs immediately below the tree, oops. Owen finds a very long stick with a forked end and proceeds to pull off some choice pears. We load up our bags. A stop at a friends house to drop off cd's yields a mother lode of Leccinum scabrum (Birch Boletes) under three fairly mature birch trees outside. We take a couple from the right of way, sneak a couple from the yard and continue on our way to the arboretum. A few blocks further we find a bunch of baby birch boletes...so cute. Although we have never tried them before, we clean the dirt off and fill up the last of our paper sacks expecting a delicious dinner. Good grief, we are already overloaded and haven't made it to our destination. The park yields a few more boletes of an as of yet undetermined type, some slippery jacks, dandelion greens, and beautiful scenery. There were some near perfect looking puff balls with pure white centers, but as of yet I am not confident enough to try one. We also found some flat topped agaricus which is poisonous. Owen showed me a trail back to the UW never knew existed, under 520, through the marshy area, and across a bunch of floating bridge trails back to campus. We throw our bikes on a 43 and ride in style back uphill to the CD. I'd love to hear what kinds of things others are finding.