TRAVELING IN STYLE : Correspondents’ Choice : PICNIC PICKS

Five Times correspondents from around the world describe their favorite picnic spots in (or just outside) the cities they have covered.

A SLEEK OFFSHORE RACE BOAT WITH CREW IN LEOPARD-SKIN BIkinis rafts up alongside a weather-beaten Alaska trawler with mates in rubber aprons. There is probably a classic wooden schooner or a charter yacht bearing a wedding party, too, among the 75 or so vessels riding each 45-minute rise and descent of the Ballard ship locks (officially known as the H.M. Chittenden Locks) between Seattle’s Lake Union and the Puget Sound. With its adjacent fish ladder and seven-acre ornamental gardens, this is a favorite picnic site for Northwesterners and their visitors, whether they’ve come this way by work boats or pleasure craft, or on foot. On a summer afternoon, the locks provide a feast for the senses--fresh breezes, leaping salmon, barking sea lions, even an occasional soaring bald eagle.

Naturally, one thinks of lox at the locks. Fishmongers at the Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle sell 20 or so varieties of smoked salmon. Alder is the smoking wood of choice locally. Seattle-made Spot Bagels, non-emulsified cream cheese and a sweet onion from Walla Walla complete the main course. To drink? Handcrafted beer is a Northwest specialty--for instance, peaty Scotch Ale from the Red Hook Brewery. Finish the picnic with a basket of seasonal berries.