Walk #4 and Walk #5

Turns out that I have a bit of time while Anthony is walking Ranger and showering before we go to watch Davan's end of term show at Do Jump this evening.  While I would usually join him on the walk or take Ranger myself while he showered so we'd have more time together (evening walks are generally his responsibility), I'm giving myself a rest evening, as I'm a bit foot sore from all the walking.  Anyway, on to walk numbers 4 and 5.

We combined two walks on Sunday because we have to do two walks a day fairly frequently if we're going to get our challenge done and because these two walks are both right next to each other and somewhat shorter than a lot of the other ones with one being 2 miles and the other 2.6, for a total of only 4.6 miles.

Turns out it was good that they weren't long.  Davan and I were both a bit tired on Sunday morning after our late night out at the Starlight Parade the night before and these two walks had a lot of verbiage, which meant that they took a lot longer than the miles would suggest.  In fact, there was so much about the architecture that sometime there were 2 full pages for each block.  We realized that was detracting from our enjoyment of the walk at the start of walk 5 and we started skimming, which helped immensely with the remainder.

Our moods were also not improved by the fact that we had a very light breakfast and then didn't find much food on the route by the time we were hungry.  We've been doing a better job on subsequent walks with bringing snacks in case we don't find nibbles along the way.

The start of walk 4.

Davan taking a drink from one of the ubiquitous Portland bubblers.

Apparently, the first bubblers were installed in 1912 to provide an alternative to saloons, which were the only place at the time to quickly quench one's thirst.  Then there were 20, now there are 129, all mountain water fed.

Me reading.  Please excuse the barely tamed bed head.

Just one of the many beautiful homes we saw that day.

Davan and Ranger stopped for a quick cuddle on the access to Vista Bridge.

And Davan enjoying the view.

Ranger jumped up on the bench, as well, but I missed the shot of her looking at the view.  Now she's just wondering when we're going to get moving again.

Davan reading about the view on the other side of the bridge where the MAX tracks enter a tunnel under the west hills.

The walk itself was nice.  I wish we'd thought to skim the descriptions earlier, though.

When we were nearly done with walk #4, we went by a Zupan's (grocery store) where I found us our breakfast.

Shortly after sharing this, we found ourselves hungry for more substantial fare, but didn't find any.  Ah well.

We did find this huge redwood tree, though.

Then we came to the end of walk #4 - Civic Stadium.  I mean PGE Park.  Nope, actually, now it's called Jeld-Wen Field.  Thanks to the selling of name rights, I actually had to look it up.

Davan stood on a railing to get a view into the stadium.

Around the side, we found the bike racks.  Almost as good as a playground.

The art work at the entrance proved to be of interest, as well.

Actually, we didn't totally finish Walk #4 until we came back to PGE Park and walked the 6 or so blocks back to the car, but it was at the MAX stop for PGE Park that Walk #5 started.

It was also at that MAX stop that Davan explored the podiums they built there.

And there was yet another bike rack.

Then it was on with the walk.

Finding this cool playground lifted Davan's spirits.

And Ranger made a friend at the adjoining off leash area.

All-in-all, it was a good walk, but we were glad to get back to the van and come home for some food.  Our walking days were about to get much longer, though.