Scouting Outing

On out scouting adventure, Xander was pretty excited thru/out - he chattered in the back seat, asking about the Delta Pond Park, and I told him I knew little about it, but that we were going to explore it and see if it would work for fishing sometime in the future...

He said it was very far away, and I said it was maybe 15 minutes as the car drove - I told him it was actually very close, and he seemed to like that...

He said he liked to fish - I asked if he'd fished before, and he said yes, as he almost always does to questions...

When we got to the area around the ponds on Goodpasture Island Rd., I couldn't find a place where we could enter the park area - there isn't one apparently....I drove around it a couple of times, going in both directions, and found nothing to say a park was there....there is one parking area, with maybe 20 parking spots just off Goodpasture, but when we stopped there and got out of the car, the sidewalk along the edge of the pond there stopped just past the parking lot - obviously there isn't a pathway along the pond, or around or into the park area, if there is an actual park there...

There was a sign put up by the Eugene Parks Dept, describing some development plans for the pond area, but nothing on it said anything about the area as an existing park - it gave a woman's name and phone number, and said if there were any questions about the projected development to call her - I did, finding that she is with the Eugene Parks Dept and in charge of parks, and left my name and phone number and asked her to call me - Xander asked me why I called someone, and I explained what the sign said - I said when she calls me, I'll call him and tell him what she said about the area and if there is anyplace we can go fishing - he was pleased with that...

We ran into an older African-American woman, maybe in her 80s walking along with a rolling walker - she said her name was Alice, and she comes here to feed the ducks - she asked me to throw a muffin along the edge of the pond, which I did, and she whooted like a goose to call her friendly denizens - she said she comes all the time, and lives in a home for seniors in the complex alongside the pond - she didn't know where you could go fishing around here, except that she sees people coming from farther along Goodpasture with fish...

Xander didn't seem unhappy that we didn't find the Delta Ponds Park - he just seemed to appreciate that we went on a scouting adventure looking for it...

It was an abortive scouting trip, but Xander wasn't disappointed, so that makes it just fine with me...

Jiichan...