375 and Onward

5/20/12 Magnuson Park, site of my very first USk outing

 A while back, someone in the global USk group had shared that she had reached a personal milestone of USk outings attended. That made me curious about how many I've attended, but I didn’t know how I would count them. Then I realized that I have posted on the USk Seattle blog every time I’ve participated – that made it easy. I went back through all my posts and made a spreadsheet of all the outings I’ve attended. It took a while to log them all, but now it’ll be easy to continue adding to the spreadsheet as I attend more.

Today, the 14^th anniversary of my very first USk outing, is a good day to commemorate the total to date: 375 outings!

My personal best was in 2025: 44 outings. Second best was 2017 with 39 outings. The worst year, of course, was 2020, when we met only for the first two-and-a-half months – five outings.

I’ve missed some outings, especially during the years I traveled heavily, so the spreadsheet is not comprehensive of all USk outings. Now that I’ve logged them all, though, I have a useful list of ideas, including some locations I’d forgotten about.

It’s funny now to read the blog post about that first outing, which took place only a few months after I had begun sketching. Here’s what I wrote:

On a rainy Sunday morning – the kind that would usually see me in my recliner with a second cup of coffee and the Seattle Times’ funnies – I drove out to Magnuson Park to join the Seattle Urban Sketchers at my first sketchcrawl. Introvert that I am, going alone to a social event like this – where I wouldn’t know anyone and I wasn’t sure what it would be like – is usually hard for me. The rain, the coffee and the recliner were all telling me I should skip this and go another time.

 But two things pushed me out the door: One was the Seattle Times’ full-page spreads that very morning of Gabi Campanario’s vibrant sketches of the new Chihuly Garden and Glass exhibition. Talk about inspiring!

 The second was the commitment I had made to myself to give this sketchcrawl thing a try. It’s part of becoming an urban sketcher and getting out into the world – and really seeing the world.

 I’m glad I got out the door! Being part of my enthusiastic, supportive USk community has led to many friendships that I cherish. It feels good to be part of a tribe. (The sketch above is from my first USk outing on May 20, 2012.)