Neighborhood Walks

One of my favorite quotes, which I say frequently is: I’m very fond of walking. Lizzie Bennet said this to Mr. Darcy in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Like Lizzie, theTravelsketcher and I are regular walkers. I’ve written about some of the walks and hikes we’ve enjoyed over the years in previous posts. Here are the links if you’re interested:

Reminiscing About Some Great Hikes

A Walk in My Neighborhood

Exploring Portland’s Pearl District

Old Growth Cedar Trail, Rockaway, Oregon

As I mentioned last week, we spend many hours walking in our neighborhood, Portland’s Pearl District, to familiarize ourselves with the area, but also for pure enjoyment. One of our favorite places to walk is the Willamette River Greenway Trail. This 5.2 mile (8.5 km) trail starts just a few blocks from our home and ends at Tom McCall Park, near the waterfront.

This urban trail is a lovely place to walk and offers nice views of the city, river and surrounding area.

Also just a few blocks from our home are some ruins of an old warehouse that was built in 1895. I wasn’t able to find out much about the warehouse other than it was used by the J. McCracken Company until 1902. The building was remodeled beginning in 1998 using reclaimed items, and was the first gold level Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified building in the United States. The remodeled building is now the National Capital Center which provides space for a variety of businesses. I love that they left part of the old walls standing; they give the area an interesting flare.

National Capital Center

Near the National Capital Center is Jamison Square which is a pretty park with a wading pool, picnic area and hosts concerts on warm summer evenings.

Even though we miss living in France, we are thoroughly enjoying our new neighborhood, and getting to know our neighbors.

We took a day trip to Mount Saint Helens yesterday; I’ll be blogging about that next week. However, if you’re interested, click here to read theTravelsketcher post about our trip there.

I hope you enjoyed this short post about Portland’s Pearl District. As always, I would love to hear from you.

Wishing you lovely walks and grand adventures,

Tricia

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Published by Travels Through My Lens

Hello and welcome to my blog! I’m glad you stopped by and I hope you enjoy the posts and photos. I’m a native Pacific Northwesterner currently living the expat life in France. I love to travel, take photos, and discover new places, and to share my adventures with others. I hope you enjoy what you find here, if so, please feel free to reach out if you have comments or questions. I would love to have you follow along as I share my travels around France and Europe. Wishing you grand adventures! Tricia

Hikes, Oregon

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37 thoughts on “Neighborhood Walks”

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  2. The Pearl District looks like a wonderful place to live, Tricia. It’s great that the tendency to just tear down and replace is being more and more tempered. An area’s history and character should be honoured respected, not thrown away. Cheers.

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  7. Your neighborhood and the nearby walks look full of character and color. I love the look of that old building, too. Whenever I see exposed brick or a building like that or anything “distressed,” I laugh at how these days we love the look, but back when it first started to look like that, people surely thought it looked terribly run down. I wonder how long it will be until things we find ugly and in disrepair today will be perceived as “cool.”

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  10. A couple of fellow walkers here! Such abundant and beautiful flora along the way. Incidentally, we’ve recently moved to a new city and have been exploring our neighbourhood and beyond on foot. Whenever, that is, the weather permits it. This summer has been brutal. What do you miss most about living in France?

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    1. Walkers unite! 😊 Walking is wonderful and opens our eyes to so much around us. I hope to hear about your new city someday; I always enjoy your posts.

      Oh my, good question; what don’t we miss? We miss the community spirit, great health care, the cafe culture, the charming old villages, cheese, wine and our dear friends we made while living there. Interestingly, our dear friends in Seattle, Shirley and Jim, just moved to France last week. We’re envious. We’ll be back, sooner than later.

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  11. Nice! I, too, love a good walk, and I do my best to take a walk during my lunch break at work every day. Definitely helps to get some color on the face and take in the fresh air. Portland looks like a wonderful place for strolls, especially during the warmer months! Can’t wait to hear about your visit to Mount Saint Helens soon– I visited several years ago and I fell in love with it!

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    1. Hey Rebecca, a walk during the workday is always a nice break. Portland is a lovely place to walk, particularly when the weather is nice. I’m glad to hear you enjoyed your visit to Mount Saint Helens. I hope it doesn’t blow again any time soon!

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  14. I think the best way to get to know a new place is just to wander round it. It’s a lovely looking place, urban but lots of colour and cute corners. Hope you are happy in the new place.

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  19. It’s nice to have a hiking trail where there are so many different things to see! I can understand why you enjoy the Willamette River Greenway Trail so much – river views, bridges, flowers, and a park … you can never be bored here!

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