Walk #11

Sadly, in the present, things have taken a turn for the less active.  Davan has succumbed to a cold.  Lena wasn't feeling great yesterday, either, and the girls ended up leaving early from open gym at Trampoline World and not attending a class they were going to at all.  I'm not feeling great, either, but well enough to get along for the most part.  I'm not up for running, but I can live with that.  Not being up for trampoline is a much bigger blow for Davan.  She is feeling pretty bad today, but is holding out hope that she'll be up to Trampoline World this afternoon.  Lena is up for either open gym or class, but not both and is deciding if she wants to go if Davan can't.  We'll see.  It's given us some extra downtime, though, so I'm doing some catching up.  Thus, walk #11. 

We did this walk in very close in SE Portland and on the esplandade on Thursday.  It was a short one, clocking in at about 2.5 miles, but one of our top walks.  We did a short one both to give ourselves a bit of a rest day and because it was raining on and off on Thursday.  We took advantage of a break in the rain and got this walk in.

Fair warning - I took an exorbitant amount of pictures for such a short walk.

Just starting out and hoping the rain will hold off.

Davan read a bit, but there was a whole lot of history about this section of the walk, so I took over most of the reading so she could look around.

It's a very industrial part of town.

Ranger checking in to make sur we were still there.

We went by this party supply store with an underseas treasure display we liked.

Davan thought that Ranger might enjoy being in the picture, too.

As you can see, Davan was having a good time.  We liked the industrial part and the types of history about the area we learned there.

However, our favorite part was the esplandade.  We've been there before, but I guess it's been a while since Davan has had a chance to just explore it rather than use it to ride somewhere or just pass through.

We went down to this public boat pier to look around.

Across the river was the fun center for the Rose Festival.  I took a picture of a ride that Davan and Lena really wanted to do, but never did get to.  Not only had we been busy, but it's quite expensive.  You can just make out the two slender towers in front of the buildings.  You get strapped in to a seat, then propelled up into the air via bungees attached to the top of the towers.

Davan running to the end of the pier.

I guess I was pointing something out to Ranger here.

Davan and Ranger checking out the sites.

There's a map of the Willamette here  by the EMT Fire Station.

Davan found more rocks to climb on.



Ranger enjoyed the grass nearby.

Walking along the path.

Standing under a sculpture.

One of the bridges is see through.  Ranger was checking it out.

So was Davan.

Checking out the art work.

Walking down to the floating bridge part of the esplandade.  The book actually has you turn off before this part, but we felt it was worth a side trip.

And this picture is a near copy of one on the cover of the book, which is funny because the author doesn't actually have you come down here.

Heading up the steps to the Burnside Bridge.

Walking the last of the bridge.

We got lucky and the rain held off with the exception of a bit of mist when we were on the pier.  It was a great walk and we were grateful for a short one that day.

Back to the present - the girls are taking another day off of trampoline, which is really too bad as that's one of the main reasons we came on the trip and because I bought a non-refundable pass card that isn't going to get used.  Sigh.  Hopefully Davan will be back up for it tomorrow.