Mill Town Trail , Evergreen Arboretum and Gardens — Thursday, Sep. 11, 2025

I wanted to check out the Arboretum gardens and the fall perennial bed. Beautiful! If you need some garden ideas this is a good place to come. The gardens are small enough to be inspiring to the regular home gardener instead of a massive display of plant power. We saved this part for last, parking at Grand Ave across from the Grand Ave park and bridge, intending on going up the stairs on our way back. We followed Grand down and thru the P Patch that overlooks the old lumber mill site parking, crossed the old pedestrian bridge and walked over to the waterfront. There are plenty of places down here now to get coffee, pastry or lunch with restrooms available. We followed the Mill Town trail around the marina, but instead of following it up the road on Marine View, we opted to get our stairs in on the Grand Ave bridge. Once back on Grand we wandered thru the neighborhoods on Colby, Rucker and Alverson to the Arboretum, admiring the stately old homes and beautiful gardens along the way. In all I got 20,000 steps in so about 6-7 miles. Fun urban walk!