Salem-Keizer Walk: Five Parks - January 8, 2020
Published on 1/8/2020
It was, A Trail of Two Cities. Starting from River Road Park in Salem and braving a rainy weather forecast, eight optimistic Chemeketans walked just short of eight miles to four more Keizer parks - Wallace House, Sunset, Palma Ciea and the crown jewel, Keizer Rapids. At KRP we took a series of unmarked but well traveled (by disc golfers) trails to the west boundary of the park where we were able to see from a distance the paddle wheels of the circa 1938 steam tugboat Jean, one of the last three steam boats plying the Columbia, Snake and Willamette rivers. (Google it for the story and pictures of the boat, still afloat in the Multnomah channel near Scappoose.) The hikers were, Julia Westerberg, Roger King, Elizabeth Seibert, Marcia Kenagy, Nanci Chambers, Sylvia Dawson, John Maurice and leader Martin Doerfler, whose wife Carol joined in for a few miles. And, because Chemeketans are either uniquely blessed or plain lucky, only the last quarter mile of the hike/walk was wet.