What with the blah blah and the blah blah, we settled on a from-home trek to watch grandson Matthew’s flag-football game (touchdown pass!) and then back home afterwards (when he and I took off to watch grandson Aden’s baseball game–tough 5-4 loss).
You know it’s a pretty urban hike when one of your stops is at the daggone Starbucks for coffee, but somebody had to do it this day, under threatening, good-day-for-java skies.
The way back would have been a little less urban, as we wanted to take Roanoke River Greenway, but the low-water bridge near Franklin Road was still delivering its own little cascade as the river flowed over it.
One sidelight of the way back: The Greatest Day Hiker and Matthew duking it out over what is and what isn’t poison ivy (see the stunning collection beside the woods on the eastward-traffic side of Brandon between Brambleton and Main), and whether or not poison oak grows in this part of the country, a question The Hiker researched at length after we got home and determined that . . . well, different sources say different things.
Home to Rivers Edge Sports Complex and back home. About 5 miles.
