A great evening to socialize and meet volkswalkers from all over the world.  We tried to take as many pictures as we could, but hopefully, I will get more when Dick and Mary Ann Brown send me their pictures after they get home.  The weather was perfect and with everyone bringing a dish to pass, the choices were many.  After Dick Koonce and the John, did their best to hand out all of the prizes from thumb drives to wine tasting out at the Gorge.  It was a wonderful way to wrap up the 2nd day of the event.

As of 3 p.m. today, 426 walkers have officially signed in, so come on out, the weather and the walks are great.  Today we did the Ft. Cascade walk, another easy easy walk, so if you aren't in the greatest of shapes, come out anyway. Tonight is the big BBQ and tomorrow night the Salmon Dinner.  So we will have the rest of the pictures up later.

Mary, Mary Ann and I headed up to Cascade Locks on Wednesday afternoon, so we conveniently missed marking the trails but we were right on time to join them for dinner at the Big River Cafe in Stevenson.  After we went just down the block to try the ice cream at Granny's Gedunk ice cream parlor.  A good start to a great weekend!

Today we welcomed two new members, Dave who has been walking with the Snails for sometime now decided to join and Patty from Newberg.  Patty actually did the walk on Saturday and bought one of the New Walker Packets, but has decided to join our group as well.  

We'd like to extend our congratulations to our top winners:  Carol Sather won $100 gift certificate to New Balance and Bonnie Church won a $50 gift certificate to REI.  Dotti Chidestek, a free walker from Portland won a Merrywalker's Visor.  Delina Carpenter and Jeanette Wolf won $5 gift certificates to Clancy's while Kelly Bales and Carolyn Smith won $5 gift certificates to AJ's, our newest restaurant.  Now for some facts.  We had 145 walkers today, 60 free walkers but 85 credit walkers!  We sold 4 New Walker Packets, three of them were Arletta Brenner, Sharoln Hummert and Patty Findley.  We'd like to welcome you to Volkswalking and we hope to catch up and meet you on the trail.  Definitely try and come to a "group walk" where you have a chance to meet more of us on a one to one.  Thanks to the Steering Committee for having their meeting in Sherwood, and next time, it will be held at the Y where you can bring your own lunch and the acoustics are a lot better.
Congratulations to Scott Cookman, who walked away with a prize for the car he entered, and it was nice seeing Jim McKee's truck and Laurel's convertible.  Although Jim and Laurel didn't win this year, last year they both took 1st Place in their class. 
Thank you to all of you who came and supported us, we had walkers from Eugene, Creswell, Waldport and Washington.  With the gas being so high, we definitely thank you for coming. 
And we couldn't have done this walk without all of our wonderful members who volunteered for all of the shifts, marking trail and sweeping.  We are so lucky to have Sandy Reid who provides us with our unique routes and the best maps.
On to the Gorge!

Six walkers came to do the walk today at the Refuge:  Julia, Dorothy, Bill, Leroy, Karen and Joe.  Not much wildlife out there today, they were probably trying to find good hiding places before the rain came.  The walkers managed to get most of the walk in before the rain started.  It was nice to be able to walk in the store at the end and warm up a bit while looking at the myriad of things in there.  The woman who was working in the store showed us photographs that people have taken, plus the winning photos that are hanging on the wall.  Everything in the shop is locally made and there's a lot to choose from.  After we headed over to Trees, our newest restaurant that just opened in Sherwood.  It's right off of Roy Rogers and Borchers, and the setting is perfect and the food is good.  

Just a couple of pictures from Vicky's Walking Group in McMinville.  They did a hike up at the Abbey, but ventured into new territory.  On their way up a steep climb to the ridge they were able to have a great view of the hills and a vineyard.  Vicky also wanted you to see how Izzy is perfectly posed showing off how well she looks after the pregnancy! 

Today we welcomed two new members, Pam and Wayne and it's always fun to have new faces on the trails.  It didn't rain out there today, but it was pretty gloomy.  But when it's dark out there the colors really pop out at you.  At the end of the walk, Judy and I saw five or six red winged blackbirds just paying in the lower brush.  We usually only see one or two, it was fun watching all of them skirt around after each other.