Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Oregon wolves

Sharp video of Oregon wolves from ODFW via Natural Oregon:

Springwater Trail, Part Five

I parked across the street from the Wichita Feed & Hardware in the pouring rain.

The trail runs parallel to Southeast Johnson Creek Boulevard. It’s dark and cold and there are no bicyclists and no pedestrians except a man so drunk that he’s stumbling and weaving. He’s got mud on his pants, like he fell down somewhere, and he’s carrying a plastic bag of groceries.

The trail crosses the road at Southeast Bell Avenue, where there’s a convenience store called Bell Station. It looks really old, and I’m guessing the name comes because it was a stop on the old passenger train line that ran where the trail is now.

The online references to the Bell Station Market are a little spotty. Wikipedia calls it “historic.” Yelp says, “they should be ashamed of selling drug paraphernalia in our neighborhood.” It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, where its Period of Significance is described as 1900 to 1924 and its Current Function is “commerce/ trade, domestic, work in progress.”

The trail stretched on along, lined with scrubby areas and industrial storage places. There was a housing development behind a wall. Jackie started acting skittish and pretty soon we came to a no-kill dog shelter, in which a dog was howling.

Then all of sudden we were at the intersection with 82nd Avenue.

Wow, I can’t believe I walked all the way to 82nd Avenue. And still only at Milepost Eight.