Hello! I hope you are doing well this week, and that if you are someplace where the heat is showing up, that you can find a well to keep cool. I know I'm not looking forward to tomorrow, when it is supposed to be 91 degrees (Fahrenheit) here. Ugh.
But sadly I can do nothing about it. Sigh.
In the middle of May, a new portion of the Schuylkill River Trail near our house opened. It's been under construction for a while, and had gotten to the point where you just kept thinking, "Come on, that looks finished, let me see!"
A lot of my walking takes place on the trail, for either part of a walk or all of a walk, so I was really excited to see what it was. It's lovely, interesting, and at certain times, you can't really believe you're smack dab in the middle of the city! My Merlin app on my phone identified American Robins, Cedar Waxwings, Ospreys, and Baltimore Orioles on my first walk as being the birds providing me with background music. I saw the robins, and an osprey, but not the others. I would especially love to see an actual Baltimore Oriole - it was one of the first "special" birds I learned about as a kid, and it also fascinated me that there was a baseball team with the same name (my childhood brain didn't make the connection that the team was named after the bird ...)
Anyway, this past Monday, I made myself stop and take some photos along the way so I could share them here and on social media, so you may have already seen some of them. But in any case, here are some scenes from along the new part of the trail. I hope you'll enjoy them.
See the Center City Philadelphia skyline in this one?
This tunnel means you can walk under Interstate 76 aka the Schuylkill Expressway.
I love the way the bridges look! And they added lights to them, so at night they twinkle and look so fabulous!
Of course, once you get off the trail, and back into the neighborhood on the way home, you remember that you're in the city. But fortunately, our neighborhood is actually pretty quiet - I mean, it's not like you don't hear anything, but for living where we live, it's kind of surprising it's not a lot noisier. The loudest noises are sirens (no surprise there), and one big-mouthed guy who lives on the street and talks at a volume that would lead you to think everyone here is hard of hearing.
So I hope you have enjoyed the new parts of the trail. As you might imagine, it's been getting a ton of use with our nice weather over the past few weeks. Right now, if you started at the southern end of this trail and headed north, you could walk/bicycle/whatever all the way to Valley Forge. (I will not be doing that ...). And there are plans for extending it even more, but like all things related to infrastructure, money has to be found. But in the meantime, none of us are complaining!
*****
The fact that I am writing this post today is a salve to my heart and brain. I had a laptop incident a couple of days ago that made me certain that I had killed my laptop. But so far, so good. 🤞
5 comments:
Now that's how tax dollars are meant to be spent!
I just bought a new Chromebook and it's taken me a few weeks to break it in. My old one wouldn't even type out some letters anymore not to mention the out of date security features but I'm sitting here with the new one feeling like I've jilted a lover.
What a lovely place for you to walk, Bridget! So nice! I have always been enamored with Orioles! When I was in second grade, we all had to choose a bird, write a (very short and very second grade-ish) "report", and color a picture of our bird. I chose the Oriole, which I had never seen in real life, but it looked so exotic! When I discovered they make hanging nests, I just totally fell in love! Sometimes I see them in my garden -- but I've never seen one of their hanging nests! XO
Lovely, Bridget! What a treasure to have that right where you live!! I have the loveliest childhood memory... Oriole's built (wove?) a nest for their babies in the *only* tree in my backyard! It was the most amazing and incredible thing ever! Ever since then, they have been a favorite bird. I have an oriole feeder but the only visitors are house finches (who do love a good grape jelly it seems, lol!) I hope the next time on your walk you see the oriole's as well as hear them... their song is just so lovely!
Oh it's wonderful! I was wondering how you go to the 'start' of it and then you mentioned you could walk home--wow!
Shari and I walked part of that trail: the part with the Planet Walk. Fascinating.
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