Vancouver, WA

Back at home we get our lunch ready, bundle up Layla and Mystie and head for the park. Today I’ve chosen Cascade Park at 13003 SE 7th, however, I usually head north from McGillivray Boulevard because the park is easier to reach from Laver Street. Turn north on 125th Avenue and take a right onto 11th Street, go two and a half blocks, which is now Laver, and there it is on the left.

Officers Row faces Evergreen Blvd just blocks from downtown, but still quiet and park-like–all that green, all those gorgeous shade trees, but right in the middle of town. I love the historic houses, some over 150 years old, but all modernized, either for businesses or as homes.

As a co-parent whose daughter lives in east county, I love to take the “old” Evergreen Highway at the foot of Ellesworth Road, when taking her home. Sometimes we stop at the fish hatchery and walk back to Ellesworth on a wonderfully wide flat sidewalk with Mistie, our Yorkie. The area is wild enough to make you feel you are in the wilderness but surrounded by homes. You can see the river, watch trains go by, smell the fragrant “skunk cabbage”, and occasionally see trillium in bloom.