Wednesday, February 20th - Cookies instead

We both had things going on earlier in the week, so our daily walk got postponed to Wednesday. The original plan was to take a quick walk around the neighborhood before we went to the warehouse to pick up another 600 cases of Girl Scout cookies for troops in the area (this is in addition to the 7,000 cases we handed out in the original distribution and the 432 we picked up last week). Katje had to help a friend with an errand in the morning so we went to a backup plan of going for a walk after picking up the cookies and unloading them at Katje's house, but before we starting sorting them out into each individual troop's order.

It was about 10:30 when we started loading cookies into the 10 foot U-Haul truck we rented and almost 11:30 by the time we got both the truck and my minivan loaded with all of the cookies. Back to the house, where Katje's daughter and her friend helped us stack all the Thin Mints and Samoas on the porch and the rest of the cookies in the TV room. Then we started filling orders. 10 cases of Thin Mints and 8 of Samoas from the porch, 1 Tagalong, 3 Trefoils and 2 Do-si-dos from the TV room. Stack it all in one corner of the living room and move on to the next order. 15 Mints and 14 Samoas, 2 Savannah Smiles, a Dulce de Leche and a Thank U Berry Munch, make another stack in the living room and move on the the next. You get the idea. Some orders were massive, some just a few cases but there were a lot of orders and a lot of walking back and forth. At 3:00 leaders started showing up to pick up their orders and we helped load cars (back and forth), kept filling orders (back and forth) and when we finished filling all the orders we carried all the extras into the TV room (back and forth). I finally headed for home at about 4:30, where I sat down and watched my leg muscles twitch. Fun!

It's not something we can check off in one of our books, but we agreed that this definitely counts for our weekly walk. We have absolutely no clue how it would translate into linear distance (Katje thinks at least two miles, I think more) but considering the amount of squatting and lifting and carrying that we did, we're good for the week. And if the need to check something off in the books becomes too strong to resist, I'm writing “Cookies” in the back of one and putting a check mark next to it!

Photos from Cookies Instead...

The 600 cases of cookies for us to pick up (I kow it doesn't look like much, but it really is!)

Our friend, Liz, in front of the cookies (glad she was here visiting).

Me, counting all the cookies.

Two pallets, plus the sides and back of the uhaul full of cookies.

The uhaul, back at my house, doesn't look like they shifted to much!

Not much clearance in there!

The walk from my porch to the uhaul, and back to the porch, and back to the uhaul, and back to the house....

Monday, February 11th - Old Town Sherwood

I'm going to start this entry by explaining that Saturday was Cookie Depot day, when we distribute Girl Scout cookies to all of the troops in Tigard, Tualatin and Sherwood. Seven thousand cases of cookies. 84,000 boxes of cookies. A LOT of cookies. Needless to say, there is a lot of bending and lifting and carrying and loading involved in this. I am not used to spending an entire day on my feet, on concrete, walking back and forth in the warehouse and to and from cars and I spent most of yesterday (Sunday) whimpering whenever I had to move. Okay not really, but I was very, very sore and tired.

Knowing that this would be the case, we decided last week that we would pull one of our “slacker” walks out. There are several walks in the book that don't really qualify as a full walk, but we still want to check them off our list. Our options are grouping a bunch together (which would probably involve more time driving than walking) or saving them for days such as today, when it's pretty impressive that we didn't just cancel. Believe me, it was tempting.

The walk starts at 2^nd and Pine in downtown Sherwood and goes past the library and various small shops, then down into Stella Olsen Memorial park. We turned left onto a really long wooden walkway over the marshes – I'm sure that at other times of year it's a great place for bird watching, but today we only saw a couple of ducks. The path winds past a picnic area and amphitheater then comes up out of the park within a couple blocks of the car. One mile, less than 20 minutes and home in time for breakfast. On a side note, when I got home I actually read the description in the “Walk There” book and found that there were all sorts of interesting things we should have been paying attention to – the Old Sherwood Hotel, built in 1890 and the Graves Cannery from 1918 as well as the site of a civic protest in the 1910's to get the railroad to build a crossing. Maybe we'll go back sometime and pay more attention...and go to the little antique store we passed, of course.

Photos from Old Town Sherwood

At the Start of our Walk (1st and Pine)

This was a really cute little house (not sure if they use it as a playhouse or a garden shed).

Railroad Road was closed but the sidewalk was open (there was a cute antique shop along this walkway, will have to go back another day to check it out).

Heading down into the park

A pretty little creek running through here

I took this of the light. They were all over at the park and look very oldfashioned somehow...

The really long wooden walkway (a lot of the boards were very slippery)

The wildlife we saw (2 ducks)

See, there really were 2 ducks there!

This was a cool bench, started as a tree that got cut down and repurposed

Another deck area to sit and look at the greenery

The Amphitheater

Took this on our way back to the car, both of us liked the railings and the porches

Another cool item we found, a metal fence with wildlife on it (the metal birds were pretty cool looking)

A new building made to look old

Monday, February 4th - Tryon Creek State Park

One more thing to add to the list of Why I Love Living in Portland: Tryon Creek Park. This is yet another of those places that feels like it's in the middle of nowhere but is really about 20 minutes from home. The park is 645 wooded acres with many different trail options – we were following the one from our “Easy Day Hikes” book, one big loop to the south of the Nature Center, then another narrower loop to the north.

The path starts out easy: well graveled, wide enough to walk side-by-side and flat. Ho-hum, we thought, another boring trail. The map shows the path crossing the creek, paralleling it for a while before crossing it again, circling away then back to another bridge and so on. It does not show that the creek is in a deep gully and every time we had to cross it meant a trek down to and then back up from the creek. Good thing it's a pretty little creek, very happy and babbly (I love noisy creeks) or we might have grown to hate it. We seemed to go down toward it and up away from it a lot.

That being said, it's totally worth it. Everything is covered in moss, which probably isn't very good for the trees but makes for a brilliantly green landscape. The trails are well maintained and they've put steps in the steeper sections so you don't have to slide up and down the hills when it's muddy. And there's a suspension bridge! Not very long and not very high up off the creek, but it is reassuringly sturdy so we bounced our way across it. And it was perfect - just bouncy enough to be fun without being scary.

So, four miles today and a lot of it up and down (repeatedly) but I think we did really well. I didn't whine or suggest quitting even once. Okay, I did suggest it once, but that was out of concern for Katje's sore knee. No, really. Having survived both Council Crest and Forest Park, we have new confidence in our ability to rise to a walking challenge. I know I'm capable of making it up a hill without dying and I no longer worry about whether my heart, my legs or my lungs will give out first. Though if I had to choose I'm pretty sure it would be my lungs...which means my heart and legs are getting stronger, because last month I probably would have gone with one of those. Progress!

Photos from Tryon Creek State Park Walk



This is the start (and end) of the Trail we walked today.



A map of the area

Start of the trail, we both thought it would be flat the whole way, um, we were wrong....



You can see the creek through the trees



One of many bridges we crossed in our walk. This one looks like the tree is holding up (or pushing over) the bridge.

Another part of the creek

One of the trails we walked...

Oy, it goes uphill! Not the flat path we were thinking it would be....

This looked much cooler in person. All the trees covered in moss as far as we could see.

Another bridge, and some of the many hand made steps.

The water running through here was very coppery in color, very pretty to see

Steps built as an Eagle Scout Project (the boy who built them is in Troop 423, Julie's sons troop). He did a really nice job and they were much appreciated!

We stopped here to rest for a moment, the uphill climbs (yes, there was more than one) were tough today...and it was such a great spot to rest!

This was also much cooler in person, the tree limbs were very spindle-y and had moss on them.

The smallest "bridge" we crossed

Both Julie and I thought this was a really cool photo op. Would also be a great place to do letterboxing.

The creek, moving much slower in this part of it.

Terry Riley Bridge

The bridge is a suspension bridge, very neat looking and yes, it does bounce when you walk over it

View from the other side. You can see where the trail comes down to the bridge on the right.

Lots and lots of bamboo reeds out here.

In all our walks, we always think, wouldn't a bench be great right about now, and low and behold, here's a bench. Sadly, we did not sit and rest a spell here, maybe next time?

This is the uphill climb right after the bench. Getting to the bench? Looks pretty much like this as well, uphill.



Julie and I both liked the way this tree was growing. Looks like a fun tree to climb, make a fort in or play tag around. 



Our end of the walk picture. And look, they have a bench to sit on!