Alberta Street Fog

I ventured out this morning with plans of doing a longer urban walk and covering several Portland neighborhoods that I thought would be of interest to visitors. I found the fog to be so thick I could not even take a picture across the street without it being hazy. The fog cut my plan short. I did walk up and down NE Alberta Street to reacquaint myself with this neighborhood and try and get some photos. Alberta St.was the last of the larger Portland neighborhoods that became “the next NW 23rd. I think it has been four years since I last walked the whole area. At that time it was still rapidly changing and becoming the next up and coming star. It was sad to see that it has stalled. It was in a mature market phase. Some businesses have closed and the store front are empty. Some of better restaurants were still doing well. It was more the fringe ones that looked like they were having a hard time. There was some new construction going on and that may lead to what has happened to NW 23rd. NW 23rd has moved from Portlandia to Portland. For now there are still many murals on buildings and some of the arts and crafts movement lives on but it look like the place is ready for a new chapter.

Vancouver Walk Route

I got out for a Sunday morning walk to work out my final route for my Fort Vancouver – Vancouver walk. I did a track on my Garmin GPS and had the route come in around 5.5 miles. There is so much to see on this route it could be a whole day event but done on the quick could be done in 3 to 4 hours. This time out I got more photos of the Ester Shore Park and made sure Firehouse Glass Studio would welcome visitors. I also found that the whole length of the new Water Front Park was open. Now I need to get the route mapped and up on the website.

Vancouver Walk Exploration

This past Sunday we had some great weather so I thought it would be a good time to do some exploring. I was trying to find the best and most interesting walk to tie in with visiting Fort Vancouver. I also had a few more photos of Fort Vancouver I need and a lot more video. I GPS tracked the whole route. The route I did ended being 8.5 miles. To long for a someone just visiting but I figured some of the route did not off that much bang for the effort and I think I have my recommend end route just about right.

The surprise on my walks was getting into the new waterfront development the city of Vancouver is doing. It is not open yet but someone left the gate open so I did a little sneak preview. This is going to be a game changer and I think in the future a must see for anyone coming to Vancouver. It will tie in nicely with walking from Fort Vancouver and seeing other parts of downtown Vancouver. I need to go back and get a GPS track of the modified route and make a map up to add to my visit Portland website.