Road Trip with Cabana - Laurelhurst

I love checking out dog parks, so on the last morning of our trip, Cabana and I drove over to Laurelhurst Park in southeast Portland. Laurelhurst is supposed to be one of Portland's most beautiful parks and was the first city park to be included on the National Register of Historic Places. But Laurelhurst has a shady past. In 2003, eight dogs were deliberately poisoned there. The debate over leash laws in Portland, and more specifically at Laurelhurst, inflamed one person to take matters into his own hands, placing herbicide-laced sausages under bushes.

Laurelhurst is a lovely park in a gorgeous neighborhood, full of old trees, with meandering walking paths around and through the park. But I could see why there might be issues about off-leash dogs. During the summer, the area in front of the path (where Cabana is standing) is the off-leash section. In the winter, the off-leash section switches to the grass on the other side of the path. Not many dogs are respecters of paths, and it must be very confusing to them to switch from one side to the other. The paths, it would seem, should be off-limits regardless of season, since runners and bikers don't want dogs getting in their way, but since dogs are allowed off-leash all the way up to whichever side of the path they're allowed on at the time, it must be a constant challenge to keep them from straying onto the actual path. It seems like disaster in the making.

When we first got to the park, there was not a single dog in sight. I thought maybe the dog poisoning incident 9 years ago was still taking its toll. Just as I was about to give up and leave, this big boy, a Great Dane-Mastiff mix, came to save Cabana's day.

This dog is still a puppy, about 1.5 years old, all legs and very playful. He and Cabana ran around for quite a while. Then, lots of other dogs began to show up.

The mastiff/dane wasn't the only big dog, though. I thought this Anatolian was a humongous Lab at first!

There were smaller dogs, too. This sweet dog, I would have liked to take her home.

Most of the dogs and owners there seemed to know each other, and it reminded me fondly of my dog park play group at home. Thankfully, there haven't been anymore instances of poisoning at Laurelhurst, but I do hope for everyone's sake, that they find a better way of dividing the park so everyone can enjoy it more fully.

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Road Trip with Cabana - Sellwood

Portland is divided up into neatly defined neighborhoods. We rented a tiny house in the Sellwood-Moreland neighborhood, which is southeastern Portland. It was a bit of a shot in the dark, choosing to stay in that neighborhood, but we truly LOVED it. We could walk to dozens of wonderful shops and restaurants, most important of which was Dairy Queen. It was less than a block from our house, and my husband has loved DQ Peanut Buster Parfaits (glorified soft serve ice cream topped with chocolate sauce and peanuts) since he was a little tyke. He and my daughters went there pretty much every day. Lucky for them and unlike me, they are all slim and can eat whatever they want without repercussion. Darn them.

Normally, we are frugal folk. It's rare that we even splurge on Starbucks, but on this trip, I didn't cook a darn thing. Not even a single cup of coffee! With so many coffee shops to choose from down the street, we bought coffee every morning and ate out for every meal. Now, that's what I call a true vacation.

Marsee Baking was a couple blocks from the house, and we ate there on our last morning. I had one of their famous "eggles"--a bagel with egg and veggies, yum.

Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge and the Willamette Riverfront were a short walk from our house. Cabana and I walked there several mornings. Here in the distance, you can see the wildlife mural, painted on the side of the Portland Memorial Mausoleum.

I loved being able to see so much of Portland from this dock. Isn't it beautiful? Portland has to be one of the prettiest cities in the world.

Sellwood Riverfront Park has an off-leash dog area, which included these stairs leading down to the river. Cabana was her usual un-swimming self. She liked having her paws in the water, but she didn't want to step down any deeper than this.

Here, she skirts around the edges of the rocky banks, carefully picking her way. Someday, I hope she will realize that she's a lab and that swimming is much more fun than walking on rocky river beds.

After exploring for a few minutes, she managed to find a rock to stand on and promptly got stuck. She was afraid to step back down into the water! I called to her, even held out treats to entice her back to shore, but no, she could not be cajoled. Finally, I had to take off my shoes and socks and wade out to get her. I thought I might have to lug all 56 pounds of her back to dry land, but once I clipped the leash on her collar, she became brave enough to step back into the water. It turned out that the water wasn't even up to my knee! The things I do for this silly dog!

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