SHERWOOD MERRYWALKERS
great easter egg hunt march 27th

Who would have thought we would have another great walk without rain!  If you haven't done this walk before, definitely do it.  The wetlands path is incredible.  You are on that path for at least a half an hour.  Very nice.

Sometimes we just never know why somethings happen.  All of a sudden you see that walker at a few walks, then a few more and in that brief second, you wonder, where are they?
Noreen Kirk introduced Bob to volkswalking last year and he loved it. He enjoyed just being around all of the other walkers and also making a few special friends as well. Starr became one of those special friends, with Noreen, and did a lot of the walks with them.  The rest of us may remember him being that guy who never wore any socks, no matter how cold, wet or snowy it got.

Bob passed away over the weekend.  There will be no service.

It is really feeling like spring out there with all of the robins and the geese and all of the smells.  We've missed the bullfrogs in the pond, but the screech owl was still sleeping in his favorite spot.  I've tried to take a picture of it, but he blends in so well with the trees that you can't spot it.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to make it and the day looked perfect and it looks you had a great turn out.  Nice of Starr to keep us up-to-date on the pictures.

Can you spot it in the tree?  I couldn't believe that we didn't have to keep quiet and it must have been sound asleep!  
We had another good group and welcomed yet another walker to our group, Carol.  Our group has grown so much that thankfully I'm meeting with Lynette tomorrow so she can begin her duties as the new Membership Chair.  At this rate she may need an assistant!  
This week the out and about group will be catching up on the latest movies so we can get together and watch the Academy Awards together.  We will be walking on Wednesday, but I'll let you know when and where.  

Beautiful weather for a walk.  The countryside look amazing with the sun and the white puffy clouds.  If you were a "jet walker" or a 5k walker, you missed the rain, but it was only at the end of the walk.  As you can see, our newest Merrywalker met some of her fellow club members on the walk, Pam and Kathy.  After the walk a couple of us met over at Famous Dave's for a nice Valentine's BBQ.  By the way, we had over 20 walkers.

Two walks went on today, the Heartbreaker in Portland (590 stairs!) and the flat walk in Hillsboro.  We had walkers in both places.  Starr went down and did the all of the stairs and the rest of us wimps went out to Hillsboro.  We took the picture before Diane showed up but there were 7 Merrywalkers in Hillsboro, plus 2 Merrywalker dogs and 1 Merrywalker in Portland.  OOps, I forgot, we also saw Sharon out there so there were 8 of us out there today.  Good job!  Tomorrow we all head out for a Valentine's day doing the Bill and Lou Ann's walk, and I guess you could call them the "Merrywalker Sweethearts".  
See you at the Y at 12:45 so we can start the walk on time.  There will be a 5k option and the 5k is one of the best parts .... hummm, well the other 6k is pretty darned good too!  Remember Merrywalkers, you get a discount of $2!

We had a 5k group, led by Joe Titone and a 10k loop (well sort of) led by Dick. And then there was Mary Ann and I way in the back playing catch up at all of the little detours.  When we got to Cook Park we couldn't believe our eyes.  Three, THREE, eagles.  Can you imagine?  What a glorious sight.  After we all headed over to Pacific Breeze for the #40.  That is the best:  a little bit of shrimp, beef, pork, lettuce, cucumber, peanuts over a bed of noodles.  Sounds great, doesn't it?  We loved it.  On the other hand, I thought I had burned the inside of my mouth on the soup.  I will definitely have to work out a deal on getting a different soup to go with that meal. 
Dick sent me his pictures from Saturday.  I added them to the Pre-Super Bowl Walk album. 

it was foggy at the Refuge today, in fact it was pretty tricky just getting the car into the parking lot.  But, as you can see, we had another great turnout.  Pam and Kathy walked ahead of the Snails, so we had 12 walkers and then Carolyn and Mike met us at the coffee shop.  I can't believe the Snails have been together for over a year now, and what good friends we have made.  Between walking slow and having coffee, we really get a chance to know everyone.  Tomorrow we are headed out to the show to see Precious.  We decided we wanted to see all of the nominated movies before the Academy Awards.  

This place is a must see.  http://www.nwtrek.org/ Angela and I headed up there early this morning and after doing the walk we took the tram around the park.  We so many animals that's it's hard to list them.  The natural trail was beautiful, even this time of the year.  One can only imagine what this place looks like in the summer, when everything is blooming.  After doing a 5k on natural trails, you headed into the park for some closeups of the animals.  Once we were done, we had a nice lunch and then boarded the tram for an hour, seeing elk, bison, mountain sheep, ducks and deer.  I knew I wanted to go there I was just glad that Angela said she would go with me.