Well folks, I found myself exhausted early last night and fell asleep about 9 PM. Then I was up at 5:30 and filled with energy. Since the reports on this list had told of two people seeing the coyotes early in the morning in Forest Park, and the one sighting of the red fox also early, I took off on my bike at about 6:15 AM to hunt them.
I rode up to Skinker and then, about 100 yards down Skinker I took the alternate bike path that goes back in the woods, the area where the first person who saw the coyote reported his sighting. No luck.
I rode near all the main heavily wooded areas and where they might come out to the edge to hunt -- over near the opera and by Steinberg rink and so on. No luck. No sightings.
However, I had had lunch on Friday at the boat house (a simply AWESOME lunch venue) and noticed they were paving the new path that goes from the back entrance of the zoo to the Grand Basin. So, I rode over to check that out and had a MOST SUCCESSFUL TRIP.
One can now walk or ride a full circle abound the whole Grand Basin on a new concrete path. On both the east and west ends of the basin are newly built bridges, so you cross two bridges and circle it all. I can't begin to describe how glorious and beautiful it is. They still have construction "red tape" up and are still doing landscaping and touch-up and all that, but even in the midst of these last stage constructions, this is the most beautiful park you can imagine.
I've tried to lure some of you to explore with me either on foot or on bike and have had very little success. It occurs to me that perhaps I erred in only offering a WEEK DAY excursion.
Is there any interest in a guided tour on either a Saturday or Sunday? And, if you have some interest which would you prefer:
Tour by:
I'd just love to encourage you Dogtowners and ex-Dogtowners to get into that park and see all of what's happened, and I think I know nearly every single change.
And, if you reply to this note positively, what about terminating the adventure with lunch at the boat house? The menu and prices are on my web site at:
In general I would say for most people, if you were drinking non-alcoholic drinks (iced tea, soft drink) and had a very nice meal, you would spend about $12.00 a person including tip. (I'm a bit of a freak on giving the server a generous tip!! And the service has been consistently superior.)
So, if any such excursion would be of interest, drop me an e-mail and I'll try to arrange something according to interests.
Anyone with a van or SUV interested in driving if we were looking for a couple of vehicles to drive 4-6 people around?
On foot one would have to focus in on some one area, which isn't a bad idea either.
Explore our new and marvelously revamped "BACK YARD."
But, oh what a great morning I had on my bike today. That's my favorite way to see the park since I can do it all in about 2 hours on a bike. In this case today I added an extra hour and rode over to the Central West End where I sat for nearly an hour over coffee and reading a few chapters in the book I'm currently reading, then rode home via Kingshighway, Oakland Ave, (little traffic on Sunday morning), and explored the area around the Cirque Soleil on the old Arena grounds and then rode home to Tamm via West Park. It was just so much fun!!!
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