Ten Ferndale parks walk

Pioneer Park buildings

One of our regular Happy Wanderers, John, took 27 of us to Ferndale, where he led us on a walk through ten different Ferndale parks that he visits regularly. We started at Pioneer Park, a place filled with old buildings from the past.

The purpose of the Ferndale Heritage Society is to educate the community on the history of Whatcom County, promote Pioneer Park and tourism in Ferndale, and bring together those people interested in preserving history and maintaining the log cabins and collections at Pioneer Park.

Once we spent time in Pioneer Park admiring all the old buildings, we started out on a circuitous route of the ten parks John introduced the group to. I know some people were very familiar with these parks, but I was not one of them. The only one I had visited previously was Hovander Park.

Beginning of Hanadori trail

John said that in all the years he has walked this trail, he has never seen any cherry flowers, but that he's seen plenty of birds. We saw some eagles and snow geese flying overhead, but alas, no cherry flowers. Along the way, visiting many other parks, we saw lots of commemorative plaques, such as this one.

Origins of Griffintown Park

We took a short trip down to the Nooksack River, and managed (for the most part) to keep such a large group together. There was one flurry of activity looking for three hikers who took a wrong turn. They were easily located, with the help of a cellphone.

The mighty Nooksack

By the time we reached this spot, it was time to make an excursion across town to visit the Edaleen Dairy, where many of us enjoyed a spot of ice cream. Fortunately, it had warmed up considerably from our early start, and it was a delicious treat. From there, we headed back through VanderYacht Park for a second time, went over and under the Nooksack bridge and ended up on the Riverwalk, which took us back to our cars.

Golden tree in Bellingham

 Once we made it back, we had covered around five miles and even a bit of uphill and downhill. It was a really wonderful and informative day. I took this picture of a tree in town that still has most of its leaves, even after yesterday's windstorm. One participant said they lost power for nine hours after a huge tree fell onto power lines. We didn't have anything much to speak of, other than a whole lot of newly fallen leaves.

I really enjoyed the day, and you can see the skies opened up from grey and overcast to mostly blue. No wind and sunshine almost always makes me happy. I do hope you are having a great day, too.

:-)