Portland has a lot to see and on this 42 mile bike ride I saw quite a bit of it. Neighborhoods, commercial districts, warehouse districts, some natural areas, and of course some of the things that make Portland weird!
The cover picture represents the epitome of Portland.... bikes and recycling.
This is not one of my normal exercise and travel videos, but covers a little project I did in my back yard. It includes what I did and how I did it. It ended up being quite a large project.
Take a look!
There are a ton of things to do around the Olympic peninsula and Whidbey Island, but this March I chose to go visit the historic town of Coupeville for their mussel festival. In addition, I camped at Fort Ebey and did a run along the shore of the Salish Sea. I love this area, and was not disappointed.
In a spectacularly inefficient day I decided to take the train to Tacoma from my house in Kelso, and do a swim at the YMCA in Tacoma. I had a very nice lunch of grilled Mahi Mahi in Tacoma, a great swim, and the train ride was quite an enjoyable experience. Overall, I enjoyed my inefficient and expensive swim!
Redding has a really nice bike trail along the Sacramento River. Part of the trail hits the Sundial Bridge, which is very cool! The bike ride also passed by the Peace Labyrinth, which was surprisingly entertaining for me. I also toured downtown Redding, which was not a huge thrill, and spent the night on my way home at Castle Crags State Park.
There are few better ways to combine travel and exercise than by rowing. At least for me, but you know how strange I am! This trip was the best of both worlds, I got to see Lake Shasta up close and personal which I had never done before, and I had a fairly challenging and glorious row of almost 12 miles. The weather was beautiful, if a little windy and cold. The boat performed flawlessly, and a good time was had by all!
It is always fun to try to find someplace to go for New Years. This year I went to the town of Maupin Oregon to do a half marathon. It was a great event, if for no other reason than the run started out in weather that was colder than I had ever run in. The challenge of that, the fun of getting out of town to do something unique for the holiday, and the general challenges of driving and running in the winter wonderland made it a much better than average event.
Silver Creek State Park, just East of Salem, Oregon, is a spectacular collection of waterfalls. I ran, slowly as usual, the majority of the ten falls route, and saw seven of the major waterfalls as well as several minor waterfalls.
I generally really like farmer's markets, and the one in Olympia is among the best. So I took a trip, visited the farmer's market and the immediate surroundings, and then did a glorious run at the Priest Point Park, which is close by.
Mt Rainier National Park is less than two hours from my house, but I have not visited often (or enough!), so I thought it was time to do so. I just barely dipped my toe in the park, seeing just 1.5 miles of a park that has over a 100 miles of trails. The Wonderland Trail alone is over 90 miles. So the trip was great but is not a comprehensive view of the park by any means. The run was great. As usual, I was really slow, but that is my normal. It poured down rain the entire time, and I was totally wet, but it did not seem to diminish the pleasure I got from completing the trip.
In my usual quest for entertainment I spent a day traveling to the Long Beach peninsula and doing a run and a bike ride. The bike ride was part of an organized event and followed the paved Discovery Trail from Long Beach (WA) to Ilwaco, and return. Ilwaco had a Saturday market underway, so it was fun to walk around the waterfront. The run was at Leadbetter Point State Park. This is a huge state park with very little development, contiguous with the Willapa Bay National Wildlife refuge. The run I did crossed the peninsula, starting on Willapa Bay and ending on the Pacific Ocean beach.
In July of 2021 I went to visit the Great Oregon Steamup. This event is held at a place called Antique Powerland which is a large facility devoted to historical equipment. The place has several different museums, and during this event zillions of tractors, cars, trucks, and old machinery are brought in for display. The part that really impresses me is that the emphasis is on equipment that operates, and most of it is fired up for this event. As you know, my thing is travel and exercise. I love visiting events and places like this Antique Powerland, but I also love to do runs. Due to circumstances I walked the run at the state park, but the exercise was appreciated.
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