Round Robin Challenge: Just in the Neighborhood

For the Round Robin Photo Challenge: Take a Walk! I asked folks to take a walk in their own neighborhoods and post the resulting photos. Here are some of mine, taken late Friday morning as John and I walked the dogs together.

This little blue bridge crosses the Alamo Wash near the local high school. Most of the wash is wild and gravel-bottomed, but this little stretch looks more like a concrete culvert. During a monsoon storm, the wash floods and so does Calle Betelgeux where the wash crosses it.

I added the caption because on this walk I was racking up steps, distance and calories burned on my Nike+ pedometer, which consists of a sensor in my new Nike shoes plus an app on my iPod nano. The Nike+ Active website has a game that equates your walking and running to travel in various cities. This walk earned me a postcard for running across the Brooklyn Bridge!

Here's how this same little blue bridge looked on one rainy afternoon at the end of July, 2007.

You know what? I think I'm wrong. There are two little blue bridges that cross the wash in our neighborhood. I'm thinking that the taller one is the one by the school, and the shorter one is near the park. But the stretches of wash beneath them look pretty similar when it hasn't rained in weeks or months.

Here's the view behind Palo Verde High School, looking northeast from Betelgeux. The steps on the left lead down from the bleachers, just a couple of feet from the sidewalk.

This is the alleyway that runs next to the wilder part of Alamo Wash, looking north. The wash itself is to the right. This is my favorite part of the neighborhood. John wanted to walk in the wash itself, but we gave it up after a couple hundred feet. The shifting sandy gravel beneath my sneakers made for arduous, treacherous walking, and I had bad memories of having to hike out of a canyon with similar conditions back in 1986 or 1987, after spraining both ankles!

The alleyway continues behind the little neighborhood park. The blue roof is the top of our underused neighborhood gazebo.

Check out all of this week's participants! So far...

Linking List
as of 12:05 AM Saturday, April 7th

Karen - Posted!
Outpost Mâvarin
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com

Jama - Posted!
Sweet Memories
http://mummyjam.blogspot.com


And by the way, Happy Easter!

Karen