Walking with Chewie 01-16/17-10

This is a two-part walk, a Saturday and Sunday adventure. This was a busy weekend, and Saturday's walk wasn't very far, but we still got in a good 30 minutes or so...

Chewie really doesn't care where we go, as long as there are plenty of horizontal targets of his territorial whizzes (signposts, lampposts, trees and such.) Here he is raring to go:

He wanted to take his chewball with him that time, but no dice. He'd just drop it less then a minute into our stroll and I'd have to carry the damn thing the rest of the way. Sorry dog.

So we go by the elementary school by the homestead and the Friends of Trees are at it again beautifying the neighborhood (you may remember them from a previous walk.) This kind of stuff just warms the old heart, too many people don't give a crap about nature and our world, it's nice to see those that do hard at work:

No, I didn't go over and take pictures of them digging holes, the grass is WAY wet, besides we're on a tight time line here today.

So we walk by the 'circle' that's a few blocks from our house. This is a park behind the Albertson's strip mall that the local teenagers like to hang out in, skate, play basketball, sneak cigarettes when they 'think' we aren't noticing...my stepson was a regular here before moving to California, and my daughter Chelsea is starting to get to that age. I guess we all had this type of hangout, for me it was the 'wall' outside of school and we'd skip class, play hackysack, and do 'stuff'...

Not a great zoom on this camera unfortunately. One day I'm going to get a Canon EOS Rebel but I can't afford a pot to piss in currently, but here's a pic of one...

Pretty sweet eh? I think so. Anyway...

We continue the walk through our cookie cutter neighborhood (we're staying in the flat lands today, not enough time for the hills) and of course every once in a while you come across an interesting house:

I know, it's just a gate!! I know...but the house behind it was all right. Not breathtaking, and the neighborhood is cramped and rather vanilla, but to appreciate seeing this you have to see the view from the top of this same driveway, just pointing down the street...

So why is this so interesting? For me it's just out of place, and I get a small thrill at such things when I'm walking around. The kind of people that live there might make an interesting story after all, kind of the 'big fish in a little pond' syndrome. I'm sure their house would be a sugar shack in someplace like the hills above here, or Dunthorpe, or any nicer neighborhood.

What can I say? These kind of things tend to blow up my skirt so to speak. I'm a cheap date that way, my wife appreciates this very much I assure you.

So anyway we circle back around the row of townhouses, through the apartment complex and through the Albertson's strip mall back towards home. Strip malls for the most part are not an endearing aspect of American landscape, but I'm kind of fond of this one:

Besides it has a Godfather's as you can see. It's not TERRIBLE pizza, I can bring the kiddo, drink cheap beer, watch whatever game on the big screen, and the video poker den is just behind the faux saloon doors under the wide screen. Maybe I'll shoot a shot of that one day for y'all.

End of Saturday Walk.

SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY!!!

We were going to go to the gym today, but I felt bad for cheating ol' Chewie on yesterday's walk so I thought we should go up into the hills to elevate the heart rate instead. Shirley (my lovely wife) decided to come along which was awesome!! It's hard shooting pictures and restraining 100 lbs of Labrador beast at the same time after all...Chewie is always down for a walk of course:

The first thing that happens is that we're accosted by two golden retrievers on the top of the first stairwell. They are running loose and wanted to check out Chewie. I could not get a pic of this since I was concerned about Shirley and Chewie becoming retriever Alpo five minutes into the damn walk! Turns out they just wanted to play, but they were pretty large dogs themselves so you have to be on guard. Their owner embarressed and apologetic, tried dragging them away on a few occasions with varying success. Hey if you're going to let your dogs run around, at least have them trained to come on command!! We assured her that we weren't the suing types, and eventually went on our way.

So we were in the hills, pushing the pace so I could test the usefulness of my new Sharper Image heart monitor. It's a contraption that older guys should wear when doing aerobic crap so that you know if you are pushing yourself hard enough to do any good or not. So we end up in a familiar cul-de-sac, the "Vacant McMansion" circle:

Nothing like seeing the foolish excess of home builder greed going to waste after all...

We go up another stairway behind the middle house to the next level of homes, and on our way we find what we can only figure is a Voodoo shrine of some sort.

Well, either that or someone's goat threw up on the walkway.

Then we walk by a very "Hitchcock scene"











This was like one house out of HUNDREDS, and the birds really only seemed interested in this one...creepy stuff.

We kept walking, Shirley taking her shift with trying to control the dog, kind of like bull riding combined with dog sledding.  I had to snap the obligatory picture of my two urban nature companions of course... :)

Naturally, they weren't aware of the fact that I was taking a picture.  Sneaky me.

We came across some interesting houses, some pretty, some interesting, a few just FUGLY...here's a rundown of the shots I took on this portion of the walk.

A Quasi-Victorian home, kinda pretty.

I like this one, it even has property and some sort of seclusion going for it, definitely in the top 10 we saw today.

And right next door was this ugly thing.  But I 'am' a sucker for a wrap around porch just about every time.  :)

Another huge monstrosity.  Not ugly, just not my style.  Shirley liked it though.

Okay, I don't really get this.  No yard, and the deck doesn't look that sturdy to me.  You can't see below the photo frame, but the backyard is basically a bark mulch swamp.  Yuk.

Watch that first step, it's a doosey!!






The saving grace through all of this however is both the killer views and the secluded, half finished aspect of much of this area. 

Here's one view.

And another, that's Clackamas High School in the background.

There must be 3-4 miles of loopy, paved roads to nowhere up here.  If you are into bike riding and not having to worry about some drunk kissing your rear tire while slaloming their '77 Caddy down the road, give me a shout and we'll go on a bike tour.  :)  Some of the hills are rather steep though, you'll have to be in some kind of shape to make it very far.


Anyways, we head back home and go to the Carver Hangar for some deep fried food that basically wipes out whatever physical benefit we got from our walk today while watching the Jets squeak a win out over the Chargers.  My kind of Sunday!