Walk to town

As some of you may know I have recently moved and am now living in the flats downtown. It's a very convenient location, and I love that I only have to use my car for work or adventures out the road now. Today I needed to get some grey thread for a project I am working on (more to follow on that once I finish it) and I thought it would be better to walk to Ben Franklin rather than to drive all the way out to the valley to get it at Joanne's. When I stepped outside, however, I discovered to my surprise that it was quite warm out!! As such, I decided that I needed to pull out my hiking boots and take an adventurous route to get to Ben Franklin.

I started my 'walk' by going up the street from my house to Cope Park. There is an awesome trail you can take through Cope Park, across the river and up to the Flume Trail, so I struck out in that direction.

I love this little pool in Cope Park, in the spring and summer the river and pool swell with snow melt runoff and the pool turns a lovely shade of green while remaining crystal clear. Now, however, the water is still quite low and the color is not as intense.

Over the river and up the hill to the Flume Trail I went, the snow has melted a great deal around here in the last month or so, which makes me happy because the trails are much easier to walk meaning I can take this route every time I go downtown from now on!! Once I got up to the Flume Trail I decided to take a short run out to the the avalanche and see how much that area had changed since I was last up there.

As you can see there was still a great deal of snow, but it was quite passable now, and I had a bit of fun climbing around on the run while listening to Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me.

I then ran back along the Flume Trail and down the road to the Mount Roberts trail head, which is a good amount of running for me. I was done running and quite happy to start walking again even though I was passed by a few runners on the way up the Mount Roberts trail. I decided that since it was so nice out (it was barely raining) and I was enjoying catching up on my podcasts, I would go up the Mount Roberts trail till the snow got bothersome. I was surprised and happy at how high I was able to hike before reaching the snow level. Summer really is coming and the snow is melting. I then turned around and went down the trail to the sixth street trail head (Basin Road being closed for bridge repairs).

From there I walked down to Ben Franklin to get my thread passing my good friend Heather on Gastineau Avenue (Hi Heather, glad you made it back from Sitka!!). After that I walked up to the Capitol Building, around to the Governors Mansion and down to my house (for those of you who don't live around Juneau). It took me about 2 hours to do my errand, but I much preferred this to walking down the street to go to the gym. Plus, when I got home I was able to get started right away on Baby BJ's quilt!!