January 29th - Fanno Creek Greenway Trail (route 1)

It was raining today but we did not wimp out and walk the mall. Yay us! We did take a paved and relatively short path but it was one in our “Walk There” book so we can check another one off the list. And unlike the mall we didn't have to walk past the oh-so-tempting Cinnabon, so bonus points there.

This is the section of the FCGT that runs from Garden Home Rec Center down to 92^nd and back, an easy (and flat!) 2.3 miles. It runs behind a few residential areas, through a few wooded areas, past a golf course, over a creek...and did I mention that it's flat? And paved? Our feet got a little (sopping) wet and I discovered that hubby's rain coat is water resistant, not waterproof, but for a rainy day this path was a good choice. Long enough for the coat to get clammy but not so long as to get soaked.

There are four separate sections of the Fanno Creek trail listed in the book, and we'll probably be walking more of them as we head into our wet Oregon spring. The entire trail, from Garden Home to Tualatin City Park, is about 15 miles and one of these days we'll walk the whole thing. Not anytime soon and we'll have to arrange for pickup at the other end because I will not be turning around and walking back to the car. Fifteen miles is ambitious, thirty is just insane. Marathon runners would roll their eyes at this but I think it's pretty clear by this point that I'm not a marathon runner!

To sum up, this is a pleasant walk, easily accessible and almost impossible to get lost on – important for us, obviously. The book says to start north of the parking lot and we had to take a minute to think about which way was north, but we figured it out pretty quickly. In the interests of full disclosure we did take a wrong turn once, mostly because we were focusing on our conversation instead of the trail but were back on track in under a minute. It's pretty hard to deviate from this one, even if you're paying very little attention to where you're going. We may revisit this one some other rainy day when we need to get out walking but don't want to go too far.