There and Back Again
An Old Lady's Tale
It’s New Year’s Eve. What to do to tie the ribbon around the end of a weird year. I was thinking about heading down to the coast, the whales are running. I could go to Cape Meares, stand at the base of the light house and watch for the ocean mammals passing by, along with the other whale watchers who have gathered there. When one person sees a whale, they sound the alert, we all get to share in the wonder. I could check out my trail down to the beach, see if it has opened yet. If still blocked, I can do what I always do, cross the blockade, climb over the small avalanche right where someone, who is my hero, has remade the trail over the rocks and mud of the slide and downed tree. I’d have the beach all to myself.
But if I go today, Roseanne’s will not be open. I will miss my favorite wait staff who always greet me with Go Birds. I will have no Clam Chowder. I’ll wait a few days.
Forest Park. Maybe the Springville Rd Trail. I did that one a few weeks ago. It was the first time I had done that trail in a very long time. I was with a friend. I talked her into heading down past a closed gate. Talked her into jumping over the little stream and heading up a steep track that didn’t look like humans had passed in quite some time. I know there was a time when humans used that trail, it was me. I couldn’t possibly have been the last one to climb that hill, could I?
That is where my mind is set, when I get a message, complete with pictures of the Walking in the New Year that my son’s family does every year. It started in Japan when they would walk a rapid transit line until the turn of the year. They have done that adventure every year, and now, in Singapore my Grandson is on board for the fun.
Oh. I am jealous. I tried to put one together several years back but the friend who agreed to join the adventure changed the itinerary to nothing resembling anything but a simple day hike. I never tried it again.
Hmmm. Nothing fancy. I’m going to do it. Head out the door and go where my feet take me. I pack water, a little something to eat for lunch. I’m in. Up my steps and a right turn on my dead end gravel road to the next neighborhood over. The neighborhood that was The Street of Dreams when we moved in. I called our home The Wart on the Backside of the Street of Dreams, not exactly fair because I live in a lovely home. I traverse the street with all the big houses, McMansions as many call them.
The wind has been wreaking hazard with the trees. At my feet I find several sheets of paper that have blown off the paper birches, beautiful little works of art. I reach out a hand of comfort to the trunk of the birch tree.
In my yard my Camelia is freakishly in full bloom. The Camelias I am passing on the street are holding tight to the buds in protection from the coming freezes.
At the top of the hill I make a right turn into a more humble collection of houses on the grounds that used to be a tree farm, now fully developed, lovely family homes.
Winding through that hood I pass the fig tree. When in season, I help myself to a treat, now bare branched. I’m heading to the ditch I need to negotiate to get across the busy street, McDaniel. Someone has placed a wooden plank across the culvert. I usually ignore it and stick to my usual path, but, it’s about setting a new way for a new year. I head across the plank, trusting in the sturdiness of the board and my own balance. Both serve me well.
I squelch the urge to gesture at the three cars that whip past ignoring my precarious position on the edge of the road and make it across to the next neighborhood. These houses have all been built on the grounds where my daughter and her friends used to prepare for 4H competitions. Where her leader’s humble little house once stood are four big ones. Where the barn held the horses and the grounds they once rode, is now a dead end full of nice little family dwellings.
As I’m walking along the road thinking back on those times, a car pulls up along side me and lowers the passenger window. It’s the other 4H leader who still has her house just down the way. Sometimes we walk together and catch up with what our kids are up to. Today she’s heading home to grab a needed bite to eat. It’s a short greeting but we are, never the less holding up traffic on a never busy street. We part ways with a “Happy New Year.”
Following the course of the lay of the neighborhood I come to the next field that used to be a horse pasture, then to become the holding pen of goats that were named after world soccer stars (football if you insist). The goats are all gone and now the grounds await the breaking of ground for a new housing development. On this block I hope to see the young man who just completed his first half of his first college year. No luck. Now on to my favorite tchotchke wall. I’m worried about the gentleman who is the keeper of the wall because I have not seen any new additions for quite some time. I see no one at the house, I hope he is OK. Further on I cut through to the way to the pond. I take my usual delight at the gaudy Christmas decorations at the corner house and remind myself that the Chinese New Year decorations are yet to come.
Today I am not going to do my usual circle of the pond. I see that the Snowy Egret is there, good. I do an eeny meeny to decide which up hill route I will take. It’s the right one, so onward I go. I check the stream to my right to see how high it is, look to the conduit enabling the stream to travel under the road I am about to cross.
On the other side of the road, I wonder how it is that I have not seen the 5 foot tall 3x3 with the carved name Boulder Creek. I haven’t done this trail in a while; is it new or did I just fail to notice it before? I follow along and see that I am about to cross a foot bridge so I pick up two little branches of wood, one fat, one skinny. At the bridge I drop them both at the same time. One is mine, one is Herm’s (my Mother’s) to see who wins the Pooh Stick race. The heavy one shoots away, leaving the skinny one flailing in a circle. I race to the other side of the bridge (three steps) to watch Herm’s stick emerge as the winner. There is no stick to be seen. I return to the other side and the skinny one has been released from the stream’s hold. I check the other side, there are no sticks coming out. I climb down to peak under the bridge. The sticks are hiding from me. Is that chuckling I hear? Probably just the stream.
Onward I go, following the climb of the path. The stream, well I guess they are calling it a creek, is getting more robust and rocks are getting bigger. I watch as a bubble, larger than all the rest, dances around, held in place by the moss of one of the rocks. Finally he bursts and joins the other smaller ones in their down stream journey. The rocks are now becoming the boulders of its namesake. I have often looked at these boulders and thought this would be a great place to dam up for a swimming hole. I don’t suppose a trespasser would be welcome in such an endeavor.
The trail now becomes steps, 4x4 ties, saving the integrity of the traverse. Though this is woods, all along both sides of the gulch, high on the hills are large houses with a view of the woods off the back decks. The steps now wind off to the left, the north. After a good climb, I come out on Miller Road. Miller Road, Mill Pond. You see this territory was all logging operations before it was deemed reasonable for housing. A section of land would be logged and milled with a portable saw mill, to be moved each time a new section was ready to be cut. On the flat lands, agriculturalists would burn the wood in preparation for the farming operations. I have always been disgusted with this history. Working together? Hello? But such is the history of this area, all government give away lands.
When I set out on this ramble I had no plan. Though I want to get back to the woods, and could easily do that, I know the paths here at Miller just wind around and come out further down the road. I now know I want to make my way up to Skyline. I have never walked to Skyline. That’s where I’m going to head. The closest street to me right now has no indication of a dead end. This is my route upward.
I know the roads in Forest Heights are treacherous when our icy weather hits, I’ve been out walking on such days and watched as cars made their way home trying to maintain their safety. This road I am on, I can’t imagine how they negotiate on an icy day. It is steep and winding.
I can’t see an end to my uphill endeavor, I just trust that I’m heading in a direction that will take me somewhere near where I think it’s going. I’m more focused on the up hill than I am on the houses or the landscapes around me. I look off to the right as side streets come up.
As I scan the outlook of my upward climb, there is a nag of a tickling thought. Will there be a sidewalk where I come out on Skyline?
It is not over speak to say I have driven on Skyline a million times. I know there are stretches of sidewalk along sections of the road. Will it be there where I come out, assuming I am heading toward an intersection with that road? And then I see a street sign. And I know it is Skyline Blvd. I get there and head to the left, west, on a very real sidewalk. Walking along a road is very different from driving along a road, no matter how many times you have done either.
I look to the north and see a very different sight than I have ever seen. What the Hell is that stretch of a building? Looking south through a section of wood I am surprised to see deciduous trees, not very old, where I would have expected to see evergreens. Then another housing development. The sidewalk turns to a dirt path and I am very surprised to see, ahead of me, what I fully recognize as Thompson Rd. How’d I get here so fast?
Left, south, on Thompson I take a quick left turn into a neighborhood because I know for sure there are stretches along Thompson that are impossible to walk along safely. Down hill I go, thinking that I will intersect Miller again at some point.
Yes, these are houses on a hillside, they are not made of ticky tacky and they do not look all the same. How did they do this? Each house seems to be of a design of their own. What was I up to when these were being built? I seemed to have had no curiosity about the development of these lands. It was/is my understanding that all this land was bequeathed to the city of Portland to be included in Forest Park, the largest city park in this country. Instead, the city sold this off to developers and bought land to the west to create a wildlife corridor to connect with the Coast Range wildlands for the sake of the wild animals. That’s an admirable concept but how does one undo a will? I’ve been curious all these years about that, if what I think I know is correct.
The downhill stretch goes on forever without a path into the woodlands. Oh wait, there is Coyote Run. The path runs back behind a house, the sign with the map is across the street. I head over to check the map to see where I am, certainly no neighborhood I have ever visited before. No, Coyote Run will not get me anywhere I want to be. I continue down the street, knowing the Deer Run trail is coming up. That will take me into wood I know.
Yes, as I hit the wooded path, I know there is a sweet bench to sit and eat my packed lunch, a bao and a tangerine. As I sit and chow down, I can hear the kids playing above the trail on the soccer fields at the school. I could take the trail up that way and pick up Miller Road then a cut into the woods and through to Mill Pond Road. But no. I want to head toward the pond. I want to see my favorite birds on the water with my farewell to the year. Downward I go, checking all along for tracks, only dogs. Wetlands, how high the water. Up and over the road to the woodland stairs. To the pond. I greet dog walkers. One asks me “Where’s your dog?” A friendly guy with a beautiful husky, looking very wolfy. The dog that is.
Around the pond I go to the benches. I take a seat with a view of the Great Blue Heron. The Snowy Egret is over the other side of the pond, but I have a good enough view of her. Mergansers, Buffleheads. Mr Kingfisher moves from one branch to the next and as he lands on that next branch I witness something I have never seen before. He lets fly a smear of very white poop, making its way from the tree branch, through the air, to the water. Well if that doesn’t say what there is to say about 2025, I don’t know what does.
A lady walking around the pond stops to look at the sight of Great Blue and we chat about all kinds of things; our kids who live elsewhere and what not. She heads off to the coffee shop to meet up with a friend and I head for the trail home. I see along this trail that there has been a beaver gnawing on a tree to bring it down. The HOA of the development will hunt you down little civil engineer. Along the way I hope to see another unwelcome visitor, the Barred Owl, but no luck this time. On up the hill to Mill Pond Rd. A quarter way up I head over to a look out and mourn the missing gigantic beaver dam and the missing pond that was behind the massive dam, never to be seen again except in my memory. Thank you HOA, ya bastards.
Halfway up I run my hand across the tops of the Rosemary planted as a hedgerow. I bring my hand to my nose to relish the smell. Almost to the top I am delighted to see my friend working in his front yard. A yard filled with his sculptures made of leftovers from his work as an architect. Twisted iron, shards of concrete, any number of other pieces of what most people would consider refuse, my friend sees an art piece. This day, he is reshaping some wood. We greet each other with joy as usual.
Away I go and at this corner I see a rare sight, the gentleman who lives there but I am lucky to catch every five years. We greet and laugh at the time that has passed. I cross McDaniel where he hates to see me cross. I think my crossing is safer, he thinks his crossing is safer. Mine includes a trespass, of course. Behind the cycle repair shop.
I head along Thompson, with a quick dash across the street for a New Years hug from one of the young folks I know, down past the Romanian Church, past the park with lots of kids and parents playing this and that, to South Rd and the final stretch home. A hike of a gain of 450 feet in altitude. Down my front steps just in time to welcome the New Year…Dublin, Ireland time.
Happy New Year all! What a delightful way to bring the year to a close and welcome a new one in. And who’s that peeking in my upper window? A big ole moon on it’s way to full in a couple of days!
Happy New Year all. Thanks for coming along with me.
Mary E Joyce