This postcard says to have a Glorious Fourth. Please do!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Would you like to join me on an urban hike? First we have to load up on nutritionally empty calories. We were going to go to the bakery where they would have had croissants with ham and cheese, Danish pastries, Earl Grey tea, fruit salad, and hot chocolate made with steamed milk. However, they had closed for the holiday, so we ended up grabbing a box of doughnuts at the grocery.

I ate one in solidarity with the kids, even though it didn’t taste good to me, and drank a few sips of the nasty Orange Flavored Fruit Punch as well. Doughnut picnics in the park with my father are one of my happy childhood memories. He died when I was six, so memories of him are naturally few. So I guess that is what the doughnut was for.

 

Next we headed for nearest urban trail.

Our town is working on a network of trails and “greenways.” We have 10 miles paved right now, but the plan is to have 129 miles eventually. A lot of them are just a matter of paving the trails that are already there, which seems odd. However, I think that paving them and having the city take charge of them will preserve them from being made into subdivisions and parking lots in the future, so I am for it.

We started with the Raven Trail, but it is only .3 miles, so we quickly walked to the end of it and back and didn’t feel that we had really had a proper hike. It is mostly just to provide safe walking to school for the kids in the neighborhood — a laudable goal, but not what we were after. We pressed on to the Mud Creek Trail.

The Mud Creek Trail is 2.1 miles, and then of course you have to turn around and come back.

Usually, when I hike, I am on trails in the local national or state parks, where the trails are arranged in loops. The urban trails allow you to go from one place to another, which is handy, but are not in loops. Therefore, you have to turn around at the end and return.

Just a heads-up, here. It is going to be twice as long as you think.

 

 

 

 

 

Such a lovely trail, though, you cannot object to the distance. Along here pretty soon is a Wetlands Mitigation Area. I have to confess that I find that an odd name. What are they mitigating? Why would you want to mitigate wetlands? Or are the wetlands themselves mitigating something? There is a number for the Army Core of Engineers and it says to call if you have questions. This may not be the kind of question they had in mind.

 

 

You can see a peep of the creek here. There is lots of honeysuckle, and there are trumpet vines and mimosa and stuff. It smells heavenly.

On the other side are people’s back yards. I think that you would have to feel a bit of responsibility if you lived there, and they seem to. There are more little figurines of geese, fishing boys, gnomes, and deer than you would think possible. They clearly want us to have something to look at besides their bedroom windows.

 

 

I like this little bridge. It is one of those humpbacked bridges, very sweet and pretty.

 

 

 

Here is the view from the top of the bridge, looking down. There are plenty of fronds and rocks and things to admire, even if the water is still invisible.

 

 

 

 

 

At this point, we crossed a less quaint but larger bridge and got to see the creek in all its muddy glory.

We were a little confused here. We were almost to the freeway, and yet the trail was still going on. We had thought when we found ourselves in the parking lot of a mortgage company that we must surely be at the end, but no, the trail continues.

 

In fact, it goes right under the freeway. This sign points out that walking under the freeway when it is full of water would not be a sensible thing to do.

Under the freeway, there were some cute little children playing in the creek. The cars boomed and whizzed above us. The whole thing was pretty cool.

 

After this, I ran out of memory in my camera. We fetched up at the parking lot for Target and Old Navy, and turned around to go back. It makes sense to have the trail go to parking lots, of course, so you can drive to the trail and walk and then drive home. Alternatively, you could go shopping and stuff the gear in your backpack before returning to the trailhead. Altogether, we walked 4.8 miles, and it was getting hot, so we were properly red and sweaty when we got back to our vehicles.

Since we live in a small town, we ran into approximately 14 people we knew while we were in that condition.

We picked up some hem tape and a bunch of movies that I hadn’t heard about and therefore hadn’t put on my Netflix list, and spent the afternoon having a needlework and movie marathon. That hem tape is great stuff, by the way. The lace kind in particular gives you a pretty edge to your knits, inside and out. (I mean things sewn of knit fabric, of course.) I am grateful to the Sew? I Knit community for telling me about it.

I finished up a top and skirt for #2 daughter and she put the zipper into my print skirt. I then switched to knitting and did three repeats of the lace. Unblocked lace looks like nothing at all, of course, but isn’t it a pretty color?

#1 daughter called from a bookstore in the Frozen North, currently not frozen but rather soggy, to ask for book advice, and to give #2 daughter some advice on love and work. The guys came and went. The Schwan’s man brought ice cream for today’s festivities. We have a rather lavish menu planned, and perhaps sparklers, but #2 daughter has to return to her state this afternoon, so mostly we will be hanging out with her and helping her pack and so forth.

Happy Independence Day!