We Interrupt This Walk...

Dave and I have been hanging around home since we got back from our trip to Yakima.  We like to take walks every day and we usually just walk in all directions around our neighborhood.  Once in a while, though, we decide to walk elsewhere.  Lately, we've been on a couple of city walks in downtown Vancouver USA.  The new public library makes a good base for our walk because it has free two-hour parking and the all important restrooms.

Vancouver Library

We walked from the library to Main Street and then north to 4th Plain, then back to the library on Broadway, then Evergreen.  It's so much easier to see all the buildings and stores when we're walking rather than driving. 

Yesterday we decided to take a walk on some other city streets.  This time we started the walk at Marshall Center, a community and senior center near Clark College.  I have fond memories of Marshall Center, because when our boys were growing up, we went to Marshall Center once a week with a bunch of other homeschoolers so that they could all play pool together.  Before playing pool, the kids were all in a bowling league together, so it was a fun afternoon for them.   Ah, the memories!

Marshall Center

We headed west on McLoughlin Blvd and walked under the I-5 bridge and we kept walking west until we reached Kauffman Ave.  We usually walk for a half hour and then turn around, and that's what we did today.  When we were almost back to the I-5 underpass, a truck stopped to let us cross the road.  How nice, we thought. 

But less than a minute later, that same truck hit the overhead wires on the street.  Crunch, pop--I can't really describe the noise that it made.  The truck proceeded to go around the corner, strip off the wires that had gotten caught on the truck and left the scene.

Using his cell phone, Dave immediately called the police and began directing traffic around the downed wires.  One lane of the two-lane street remained open.  After about ten minutes, which felt like a half hour on this hot, humid day, a policeman arrived, and shortly after that, a city utility truck.  It was determined that the lines were phone lines, not electrical.  Whew!

It was also determined that the phone lines that were hit by the truck were placed too low.  If we had been driving through there in our tall motorhome, we would have hit the lines, too.  It was also determined that the local phone company, who shall remain nameless, had just repaired that line the day before.  Not a very good job, I would say.

Five minutes later, we finished up our interrupted walk and drove home.  And that was the extent of our excitement on Friday!

I wish I had pictures of Dave directing traffic, but just when I would start to take a picture with my phone, other cars would come along and it just wasn't possible to take pictures, so you will have to take my word for it that he did an excellent job!