The walk I did today was the correct version of a route I tried last week:
Looking for different walking routes. This one was OK until towards the end when I found myself in the middle of a rather large number of walkers. I had to keep crossing the street or veering way off track to keep our distance from each other. I guess everyone is going nuts. I should be able to get out of town by next week.
On 4/16 I re-did a walk I did last week where I missed a street. I thought that taking that street would turn a 7 miler into a 9 miler but in fact the extra streets added only .75 miles. But it’s a nice walk, right through the very ritziest heart of Mill Creek. I did get a few stink-eye stares from the locals, who recognized me as an inferior (not a resident of Mill Creek). Tough.
On Friday I took a slightly different route:
This was only 5.5 miles but also rather pleasant. Not quite so ritzy so I raised no eyebrows.
A little rainy today. Jan has been busily making face masks for healthcare workers at Evergreen Hospital, where she works, but she took a break so we could walk up to the local drug store and get a heat pack for her sore back – sore from many hours hunched over the sewing machine.
The world is crashing down around us. We need to continue the shut-down until the virus is under control and that, I am afraid, will not be until late next year at the earliest. In the meantime we absolutely need the fed gov to step in to support us, coordinate supplies and testing apparatus and strategies – and we have, tragically, an insane authoritarian who claims total authority but no responsibility.
So I guess we can walk until the virus comes for us and takes us, gentle, into that not-so-good night.
Of course the major tragedy is the COVID-19 outbreak and our pathetically inadequate federal response. On a personal level, it is an additional bummer because the beautiful weather we have been having lately (all last week, all this week, out as far as they forecast) has been happening at a time when hiking is out of the question.
Bummer.
The walk today was nothing special, in fact it was my usual 4 miler with two hills. But I had never tracked it so here it is on Google Earth.
I haven’t been tracking every walk but yesterday I took a different route and almost got it right.
For the first time since we moved here, in 1990, I walked right through the very heart of Mill Creek, the town just north of us. Mill Creek is a pretty ritzy town. It has a very nice little downtown section (now mostly closed); its residences are mostly contained within subdivisions with – if I may say – fairly pretentious names like Heatherstone.
Anyway, I missed the turn I was going to take and wound up with a 7 mile walk rather than the 9 mile walk I was shooting for. But I saw where I went wrong and will correct it next time.
I am just documenting some of my newer walks for my own reference. Today’s was only 4.4 miles, I wasn’t exactly sure where I was going so I took a known route. With the track on the map I can look it over and see where there are places I can explore. I see a few possibilities for next week.
Hiking is out – the trails are shut down. Our direction in this state is to only travel short distances and only for essential reasons.
We can go to the doctor or grocery store or drugstore. Jan can go to work (she works at a hospital). But otherwise, if you want to walk, you need to start the walk from your front door and not drive anywhere.
My typical walks around here are 3.5 to 4.5 miles. But starting today, whenever the weather even remotely cooperates, I will be doing something like what I did today, 9.15 miles.
Here is the Google Earth image of my track (I carried my Garmin along):
Our house is the little blue arrow just above the first ‘2’ in ‘2020’. A nice loop.
Here is a little scene that caught my eye:
I am not a fan of gang graffiti, in general, but with my cheap camera you cannot read what the blue tag says (it says ‘Crips’) but it is kind of a nice splash of color on an otherwise bleak industrial scene.
Also, the truck is a C. R. Englund truck. It reminds me of the hundreds of very early morning (about 4am) walks I used to do in Renton, near where I worked for Boeing, when I used to walk by a place whose lot at that time was filled with C.R. Englund trucks.
This scene:
This little wetlands preservation site is feet from a very busy highway.
The neighborhood walks are no substitute for hiking on forested mountains – oh! how I miss them, particularly now with the snows starting to retreat in the back country – but they are better than nothing.