Walk 10

I purchased a book by local author Laura Foster, "Portland Hill Walks". Her books guide readers through different neighborhoods and parks while learning about different historical facts along the way. It's P.E. and local history class all rolled into one. It should totally be a high school class. The students could spend the first part of the week researching the historical facts and then at the end of the week go for a walk. Or, they could go for the walk first, noting all the historical facts along the way, and do a bit more research upon returning and then write a paper a bout it. Either way, that class would rock.

Today Amanda and I did "Walk 10: Multnomah Village to Vermont Hills Loop". We started at one end of Gabriel Park and walked through Multnomah Village stopping to look at the shops. On the corner of Troy and 36th is this fir tree. Planted in 1926 it has three equal sized trunks making it resemble a candelabrum or a harp. It has been featured on "Ripley's Believe It or Not" It must have been a year that they were hard up for some stories.

After that thrilling sight we were sent up steep hills into the neighborhood just above Multnomah Village. It was a beautiful day for walking. No rain and not too cold. We climbed to a peak known as the "Texas Hydropark". The city of Portland was smart and claimed the land at the top of all these hills to put the city's water tanks on. This way gravity can help them out. I learned that when there is more than one tank it's called a "water tank garden". The streets in this neighborhood are all named after states (hence the name Texas hydropark). We could not for the life of us figure out what sort of order they were in though. We had Nevada, followed by Texas and then California. Vermont was after that followed by Dakota.

We enjoyed more steep neighborhood hills that finally led us to the entrance of Gabriel Park. Once we entered the park we were greeted by dog after dog. We met a sweet-no-more-than 6 month old black lab named Dash. He was a Christmas present and was enjoying a walk with his "brother" and "dad".

At the end of our walk we came across what looked like a crazy rock with trees growing out of it but it was really a bulbous looking tree trunk.

 We were satisfied to have walked three miles up and down hills while enjoying something new and also historical. I'm looking forward to the next one.