This is an excerpt from "Bicycle Routes in Thurston County", published by Tezzer's Tours, which I haven't seen online and may be out of print, but thought I'd share a route that includes Tumwater Falls Park...one of my favorite places in the Olympia area:

Oly Ost in the morning:

This morning whilst walking my dog around Lion's park, I noticed the sprinklers were going. It get's worse: most of their projectile landed squarely under the trees landing in areas where not only was nothing growing, but where nothing was intended to grow--covered in bark.

Is the sum total of that waste enough to save someone's job?

That's the kind of poor planning and lack of foresight (not to mention carelessness) that drives me nuts.

On the other hand, I think I make perfectly rational decisions regarding watering my lawn in the morning. Please comment over there.

Libertarian from across the dock...

Logs near the West Bay log yard

Park near the 4th ave bridge on West Bay Ave

I had a dyslexic moment naming this one...  should have been "Looking North" :-)

A recent posting asked questions on off-leash areas for dog's in the local area. Lo and behold, look what's in today's editorial section of the Olympian newspaper. The editorial is here.

From the Our Views section of the Olympian.

Area needs an off-leash park

It’s time to create an off-leash dog park in South Sound.

Dog parks — or bark parks — are popular attractions across the country. They provide an area for canines to run and fetch, jump and play, without the confines of a leash. South Sound residents must travel to Fort Steilacoom Park in Lakewood to let their dogs run free.

That’s not right.

Go read the article.

One of those yellow "we're going to build something here" signs has been in my peripheral vision for the past few weeks on Cain Road. I finally slowed down early enough last week to see that the sign said "Cain Road Park." Aha, better than a row of Quadrant Homes.

So, here's what I could find out:

1) Compared to the entire plot (about four acres) most of the actual park will sit on less than a quarter of the park. Most of the lot will be left untouched, except for carving out a path so people can easily walk around.

2) Even though the yellow sign is up, in 2008 there is only going to be a few improvements made to the site, with full development further down the road.

Here's a couple of images to give you an idea. On both, click for full size image.

From the plan itself (available here):

Property Purpose

This parcel was purchased to be a neighborhood park. Neighborhood parks typically contain playgrounds, picnic areas, trails, open grass areas, basketball courts, tennis courts, restrooms and art facilities. It will likely be at least 10 years before funds become available for fully developing the park.

Interim Use Objectives

The following objectives came from feedback at the public meeting on 5/17/07.