Eugene Park Tour: Delta Ponds

It's been a few months since Dale and I visited a new-to-us park here in Eugene. I'm hoping to visit 25 this year, so I'd better get to it! I'll have to visit one or more per week to achieve that goal. I have 17 more to visit, but there are only 16 weeks left in the year!

Since it's approaching our favorite time of year, Dale and I will enjoy getting out to the parks in Autumn.

Yesterday we visited Delta Ponds. As the name suggests, these ponds nestle in the lowland delta of the Willamette River. The park is primarily a paved walking path around the untamed ponds.

It felt good to be out and about in the late morning while it was still cool. It's been in the high 80s and 90s lately.

I've heard for years that painted rock enthusiasts like to hide rocks in this park, so I brought a couple along. I didn't find any, but I left two. The first? This sailboat. It seemed like appropriate subject matter for the setting.

I hid it at the base of a park bench

that looked over a grand pond view.

Further along the path, we searched for a geocache. We found an excellent cache container under a bridge that looked a lot like this.

There's lots of wildlife to see here, including a huge hawk that was riding the air currents high above the pond, then dipping down into the water.

Returning to the car, I found a nook in a tree beside the path that begged for another painted rock.

This turtle looks right at home there.

We will return to this park, for sure, picking a different parking lot for a different view. I'll try to remember my telephoto camera lens!

Follow Our Geotrail! - Part 3

Here are the final photos from our birthday/Mother's Day geocache outing. Geocaching is the ideal sport / game for us!

A surprise along the way ... this gnome lives in a hollow tree.

Cache of the Day - a pirate themed cache! It earned a Favorite Point from me.

Cap'n Pete's Hidden Treasure

This guy hung around in the trees, guarding the treasure chest.

Jodie found a travel bug

And so did I! 

And finally, a heart charm came home with me after I exchanged some swag.

It was a lovely, lovely, lively day outside in nature with two of my favorite people in the world.

Follow Our Geotrail! - Part 2

Here are more photos of our birthday/Mother's Day geocache outing. Oregon is beautiful in the Springtime!

Flowers, flowers everywhere

Beauty blooms around the rust.

Texture on texture. Looks prickly to me.

Watch out for thorns if you want to smell a blackberry bloom.

These tall bright torch lilies (red hot pokers) were blowin' in the breeze.

To photograph the itty bity blooms, I got down on my knees.

CITO (Cache In, Trash Out)

Jodie does her bit to keep cache areas clean. 😇

Follow Our Geotrail! - Part 1

To celebrate Dale's birthday and Mother's Day for Jodie and me, we had an excellent day of geocaching. We drove out to the countryside north and west of where we live. We found 10 caches and saw lots of beautiful scenery. 

Take a look!

The scenery

Christmas tree farm. The trees look itty bitty next to the neighboring forest.

A seven layer cake of exquisite Oregon.

I'm pretty sure this is Mt. Washington ... in central Oregon. We had clear skies!

I don't often see old silos made of brick or wood.

Orchards

The Parks

We stumbled across this wildlife refuge. We'll definitely need to return to take in all it has to offer.

This is where we stopped for our picnic lunch.

Part 2 tomorrow!

Abby's Cache I

Jodie and I have begun to place a series of geocaches called Abby's Cache. We got the idea from a man in Post Falls who placed hundreds of caches in the Spokane/Coeur d'Alene area in the name of his granddaughter, Caitlyn. We've placed three caches for Abby so far, but two of them already were "muggled." They disappeared.

So a couple weeks ago Jodie and Abby and I returned to Eastgate Woodlands to replace Abby's Cache I.

The cache is hiding in a tree (not this stump) in the woodlands that border the Willamette River.

It was a cloudy day, and the river was running swift and high. It felt good to walk in a park between rain showers.

Nearby, the wildflowers were just starting to bloom, as well as some daffodils.

This flower grew alone from a single bulb at the base of a huge pine. Unusual!

Now that Abby's Cache I has a new home that's more secure than the original placement, we hope many geocachers will seek it out and exchange treasure.

Eugene Park Tour: Country Lane Park

Dale and I are back at it! After staying inside most of the winter, we had our first foray out between rainstorms. Our Tuesday Travels took us to a new-to-us city park.

Country Lane Park is a small neighborhood park that has the amenities of most of Eugene's neighborhood parks. There's a nice playground with soft bark underfoot that has bouncy cars for the little ones and a good-sized play structure for kids. There's even a climbing wall on this one.

On one side of the playground is this bell-shaped tube. If you talk into it here ...

your buddy can hear your voice on the other side of the playground.

There are benches for the parents to rest on while the littles are playing and swings for kids of all ages.

Behind the playground is a small basketball court and a half acre of open grassy area.

W-a-y back among the trees, across a quite muddy field, Dale and I found our first geocache of 2025. My shoes are still caked in dirt.

A Walk in the Park: Day Seven

In mid August Dale and I took our Tuesday Travels to another park along the edge of Fern Ridge Reservoir, just west of town. 

Zumwalt Park is maintained by Lane County and the US Army Corp of Engineers. It's quite large. It's a great place for dogs run off leash and play in the water.

We didn't find the closest parking spot, so had our lunch in an older, less-well-maintained part of the park on this crumbling, moss-covered picnic table 

under tall, tall trees. 

We walked down the path to the main part of the park where we saw clusters of picnic tables and barbecue pits under the trees. Great for group gatherings. 

Then we followed our GPS to a geocache that was extremely easy to find and a great cache for kids. I crossed the big open field 

and walked down to the lake's edge. 

What a lovely day! On the way back to the car, we got mountain views 

over fields of wetlands littered with cattails. 

This butterfly followed along.