Today was an excellent example of one of the reasons I love Oregon.The weather was wonderful for walk. The sun started peeking out from behind the clouds as we all started out. The fall color's were so vivid against the blue of the sky which was almost clear by the time we ended. There were 40 of us who took advantage of another day in paradise! It just doesn't get any better! 

A Special Thank You to all our Veteran's !!!
This was a day that gave us the opportunity to thank all our Veteran's for their time and service. Today's walk was in, around and through Fort Vancouver, no better place to find retired, active and future Veteran's.  At 11 O:clock the parade started so you needed to walk fast so you didn't miss anything. There were flags waving, bands playing, solder's marching and family's honoring all of "our" hero's!  The jets and planes were flying over giving us goosebumps and filling our hearts with pride. Talk about friends, smiles feeling good... well this walk had it all !!!  Thank you to everyone from Vancouver USA Volkssporters for their hard work and wonderful walk !  GO USA !!!    

Today's walked "could have" given us all a natural high, we also could have called it: The Mushroom Walk.
As we started out along the trail we started seeing unusual & colorful mushrooms.  Red ones with spikes, brown domed ones,
creamy flat spotted varieties, even a tall white one with a spiral stem, caught our eyes. Then our imaginations took off, I think we were getting a Nature High from the blue sky, spectacular colors of the fall trees & the beauty of the Nature Park. Dar lead 21 of us through the forest and had even pre-walked a portion of the trail yesterday to make sure the path wasn't muddy. A special Thank you for a "Magical"  walk in the woods today!!!   

Today it turned out a lot better than we expected.  There are a couple of pictures from last weeks walk, so you'll see a bit of difference in the pictures with the fog.  This week there was not a spot of rain and we enjoyed one of the last "warm days" out there.  The wildlife only included a newt and the geese and then we did see "wild" kids on a school field trip. We had our meeting and then met over and saw Jane for coffee at Target.

Starr wrote the oher day and attached a picture of Jim blowing the leaves in the backyard.. It's been one year since his accident. An amazing story.

There were more walkers that I anticipated at this event, but then again, what's not to like about Trolleys and trains?
This was a new part of the trail system and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it. We even stopped in at a hat store and a lot of the walkers, including me, enjoyed trying on the different chapeaus.  considering all of our recent rain the Willamette looked so serene and it was fun watching the water fowl figuring out if they should leave or stay.    Another good Saturday.