Monday, May 13th - Downtown Milwaukie and riverfront

We started out directly across from City Hall, in a three-part parking lot that was reserved for city employees on one side and somebody else on the other. The center section didn't have any other cars in it but didn't seem to have any posted restrictions (that pertained to us, anyway), so we took a risk and parked there. We headed up Harrison past the big construction site where they're putting in the newest branch of the Max light rail system and hung a right on 28^th. This is a cute area of mostly older homes, and we had a great time dissecting the pros and cons of each. (Symmetrical is nice, but so is asymmetrical if it's done right, doors should be in front, not at the side of a bump-out entryway, planted yards are nice but grass is a lot easier to take care of...that sort of thing.)

Two blocks over and we headed back down toward McLoughlin Blvd, the main road that bypasses the downtown area. Back across another set of railroad tracks, also under construction, then we had to wait for the looooong light at McLoughlin. Across the road is a lot where they keep all of the gravel for the construction project and a water treatment plant. Neither looked like the path we were supposed to take so we continued along the path that looked like the one we were supposed to take, but wasn't. Fortunately my complete lack of navigating skills have made us pretty adept at improvising and we went through a (less charming) residential neighborhood and picked up the path, making this a loop walk instead of an out-and-back.

On the way back we came across a gaggle of canada geese with a whole bunch of fluffy little youngsters. So cute! The lady walking her dog in the opposite direction agreed they were cute, but noted that soon they'd be contributing to the rather large amount of goose poop in the park. Focus on the present and enjoy the moment, random lady!

It turned out that we were supposed to have taken the road past the water treatment plant that looked like a driveway to connect to the path. Oh, well. After that it was just another looong wait for the light and a quick jaunt back to the car. According to the book it's 2.4 miles, which seemed like quite a reasonable distance when we first started. We're getting a lot better, and I'm beginning to think we may actually survive the half marathon Shannon has talked us into this fall!

Photos from the West Moreland to Crystal Springs walk

The start of our walk finds us by the Stars Antique Mall

Crystal Spring Creek running through West Moreland Park (Julie and her sister would float down this and pass through the culvert under the road when they were kids).

One of the old beautiful houses along our walk

I love the way the Laurel is framed into an arch over the gate

Another beautiful house along the way



The Crystal Springs Rhododendron Gardens



Our walk takes us into Reed College

Love the Salmon art work on the walkway

One of the water areas in Reed College

The steps up to the Bridge and the scenic viewpoint

The bridge across

Our view from the viewpoint, the water is a little murky and not very deep

Reed College (looks like something out of Harry Potter)

We both laughed at the couch sitting in the covered arch way of this beautiful old building. 

Eastmoreland Garden (this is about it for flowers)

A few more around the sign.

This is the culvert under the road that Julie and her sister would float through as kids 

A view of the "wedding" bridge over the Creek. So pretty!

On the other end of Eastmoreland Park is Westmoreland Park.

The purple house by where our car is parked. I love the dark rich purple. Wonder how I can convince my husband to let me paint our house this color.....

Monday, May 6th - Westmoreland to Crystal Springs

My old stomping grounds! We started this week's walk in “downtown” Westmoreland, which is about six blocks from the house I grew up in. I love this area, mostly because it's full of memories. Milkshakes at the soda parlor at Rexall drugs (now a Zoomcare), paper dolls at the Coronet five-and-dime (now the Stars antique mall), watching 'Grease' for the first time at the Moreland theater (still the Moreland theater – I wonder if they still have the scratchy old loveseats with the springs poking out?). They used to have a Make It Moreland Day parade every summer, and we'd scramble to pick up candy and Stan Wiley Realtor buttons thrown from the floats. It was a great place to grow up.

We headed down Bybee, past Westmoreland Park where they used to hold the milk carton boat races every June and over the culvert that we used to inner tube through with my cousins (my mom is looking down right now disapprovingly – we never did tell her that we used to cross Bybee with our inner tubes so that we could float back under it). We crossed over McLoughlin Blvd into Eastmoreland, and followed SE 28th Avenue past the golf course to the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden. The garden, which was free when I was a kid, now charges $4 admission so we bypassed it and walked through the Reed College campus instead.

Reed is a small liberal arts college that takes great pride in its academic rigor and free thinking attitude. It's also really, really pretty, with beautiful old brick buildings, huge oak and pine trees and a wide, sunny lawn. We took the path halfway around Reed Lake and past the dorms, which are decorated with window chalked art and philosophical quotations and give a sense that while this is a very intellectual college, it's also a lot of fun. We walked across campus back to 28th Ave and retraced our steps back to Westmoreland.

This is one of my favorite walks since we started last fall. Not because it was especially interesting but because I used to walk there with my Mom and Dad. We have at least one more Westmoreland walk in the book, but we might have to wait a while to give Katje time to recover from my unrelenting “we used to...” and “when I was a kid we...”. In the meantime, I may have to take my kids over to that side of town and bore them with my stories. I'll also have to walk them from Llewellyn Elementary to my old house, and from there to Sellwood Middle School so that they can marvel about how far I used to walk. By myself. Without a cell phone to call home in case of an emergency. Ah, the good old days.

Monday, April 29th - Mt. Tabor park

New first rule of walking: never take more than one map. Especially maps of Mt. Tabor park, because none of the maps will show the same trails and the whole place is kind of confusing anyway. After trying to reconcile the map in the 'Walk There' book with the one in the 'Easy Day Hikes' book we picked up an official park map and (kind of randomly) decided to follow the blue trail. One problem: the blue trail isn't marked. The top of the hill looked like a good starting place, so up we went – on the express trail, apparently. It was very steep, but it certainly got us to the top quickly. Having summited Mt. Tabor, we asked a nice older gentleman the way to the blue trail. Not only did he know where the trail was, he knew where all THREE blue trails were. We picked one at random and headed down toward the reservoirs.

The city of Portland gets most of its water from the Bull Run watershed up above the city, and it is gravity fed into eight different reservoirs throughout the city, four of which are located at Mt. Tabor, one underground and the other three uncovered. Shannon walked with us again this week and asked how they keep people from throwing things into the water. Umm...yeah. For the sake of everyone who drinks Portland water (myself included), we're not going to go there. The good news is that they only fill one reservoir at a time to keep the water fresh, and they clean the other two while they're empty.

After walking around the two reservoirs at the bottom of the park we cut a little through a residential neighborhood and up the path back to the car, which was parked about halfway up the “mountain”. The good news is that in our wandering we covered all of the 'Walk There' hike and most of the 'Easy Day Hikes' route, so we're checking them both off and calling it a two-fer.

One other item of interest: there is a statue at the top of Mt. Tabor of Oregonian editor Harvey W. Scott which was designed by Gutzon Borglun, the artist who sculpted Mount Rushmore. Which makes Portland almost a little bit famous, in my opinion. Not quite, but close.

Photos from the Mt. Tabor walk

In case there was any confusion, we hiked Mt. Tabor

The Outdoor Amphitheater

View of the Willamette River and Downtown Portland peeking through the trees

Another view of Downtown Portland, this was our friend Shannon's favorite view

Statue of Harvy Scott

One of the Reserviors on Mt, Tabor. I love the turret looking buildings.



One of the beautiful trees on Mt. Tabor



another reserviors here, not very full right now.

View from the top of the stairs looking at a few of the full reserviors

the many stairs down

Look! A chicken coop. We find many of these when we walk....

Loved the vine covered portico on this house.

Shannon, Julie, and I all loved this tree and thought is would be a good climbing tree. I also think it looks like it is waving to folks.

Photos from Downtown Beaverton to the Round

We start our walk by the Beaverton Library

Neat looking "Art" in the Park

The Beaverton Farmers Market is in this same park

Found some really pretty trees on this walk

On our way to the Round

Some more cool "Art". Yes, this is a metal canoe with a saddle.

Beaverton Bakery has been here a while

Beaverton Bakery

Along the way, we see a cool Historic Center, not open when we came by, will have to come back

The Max Station

We finally reach the Round, which is round...

Pretty waterfall on one side

We stop by the bakery on our way back to the car

Butterhorn Danish (wish was very dry)

The Fountain makes up for it though, perfect day to sit by the water...

Wednesday, April 24th - Downtown Beaverton to Round

There are advantages and disadvantages to city walks. They're not muddy when it's wet, but they're usually less interesting to walk. There are lots of street signs so it's hard to get lost, but there's often a lot of back-and-forthing to add distance. This is one of those walks. It circles around streets unnecessarily, not because there's anything interesting to see but because....well, I'm not quite sure why. The distance thing, I guess. We started by parking on Hall Blvd right next to the Beaverton Library, then headed west past City Park. This is a pretty awesome park, with one of those walk-through fountains and two concrete ping-pong tables – with built-in nets, no less. How cool is that?  I've seen chess tables in parks, but never ping-pong.

But anyway...we walked from Hall Blvd to Watson Rd, up a bit and then back over to Hall, circled around through Beaverton's old town, back across Hall and again over to Watson. Our destination was “the Round” which is basically a small semi-circle of a park next to the MAX station (MAX is our light rail commuter train, for you non-local readers). Then we turned around and traced our steps back to old town and the Beaverton Bakery, a favorite of ours....until today. The prices have skyrocketed, the ladies behind the counter weren't very friendly and the danish was dry. Maybe it was just a bad day, but we probably won't be making any special trips back over there.

The good thing is that we were going to fudge on the walk a little (going back and forth is annoying but doing it in reverse is pretty much unbearable) but the side trip put us back walking exactly where the book told us to be. So much for cutting it short. We retraced our steps back to City Park, where we sat next to the fountain to eat our somewhat disappointing danish. Totally worth it, though, as otherwise we probably would have gone straight back to the car instead of sitting a while to enjoy the warm weather and sunshine. I'm not sure that our 2.8 mile walk balanced out the danish, but it's better than driving up to the mall for Cinnabonn, so I'm going to feel virtuous about it anyway.