Larkspur Park is where the Senior Center is, where I cleaned the restrooms early in the morning for most of a season. It has a playground that is designed for children who have various physical challenges and its restroom is one of the potty-training ones (the others being Harmon and Blakely Parks) where people let their children go unsupervised and then the child trashes the place or misses the toilet altogether. It is not my favorite restroom, and it wasn't one of my route's daily regulars. The trouble with this place is largely due to the placement of the trash bin in one stall/room, which is located
directly under the handblower, making it very difficult to take out the liner and replace it, as well as the cramped custodial closet, which was created as an afterthought. There is also a basketball court that doubles as a pickleball court, but no games were played when I was there. The pavilion by the trail head is where I won a lottery for one of fifty expandable lunch boxes at company luncheon. I picked a fashionable blue one, even though the organizers were frantically trying to get me to pick a pink one.
I went over to the trail head, and found an information board, showing a map of the one kilometer long Larkspur Fitness Trail that winds around the perimeter of the place. It goes north of the parking lot, west of the Senior Center, to the south, on the side walk to the east entrance of the park. I was surprised to learn that there was an east entrance! It's for pedestrians, and the paved path lies east of the playground area, with the trail going off of it. The trail winds around in an undeveloped area that had a lot of juniper trees, and then back to the trail head. Every one tenth of a kilometer, there was a post, announcing the distance and that this was indeed the trail The trail itself was covered with bark dust, and even with these helpful features I ended up in the parking lot twice.
At one point along the trail is an uprooted dead juniper. What makes it worthy of examination is the large rock that the root wad enveloped: basic bubbled basalt that was tucked up almost to the trunk. Near the 0.6 post, two junipers had shared a same spot, but one had been sawed off about a foot up off the ground. A small new tree is growing out of the trunk. There were no pines in the cluster of junipers, and then suddenly, there were Ponderosas of various ages on both sides of trail.
I made two laps of the trail, which totaled about 1.24 miles. The first took about nineteen minutes, the second, about fifteen, mainly because I wasn't getting lost. Then I decided to go up the Larkspur Trail, which is 3.4 miles long, but I only went a short while, about five minutes, between the small canal bed and the fences of the subdivision. I got to a cul-de-sac, turned around, and returned to the car.
Above: Photo of Larkspur Pavilion from http://bendparksandrec.org/parks__trails/facility__park_reservations/pavilions_picnic_areas/
Below: Photo of Senior Center and general landscape from http://kirbynagelhout.com/portfolio-item/bend-senior-center/
I went over to the trail head, and found an information board, showing a map of the one kilometer long Larkspur Fitness Trail that winds around the perimeter of the place. It goes north of the parking lot, west of the Senior Center, to the south, on the side walk to the east entrance of the park. I was surprised to learn that there was an east entrance! It's for pedestrians, and the paved path lies east of the playground area, with the trail going off of it. The trail winds around in an undeveloped area that had a lot of juniper trees, and then back to the trail head. Every one tenth of a kilometer, there was a post, announcing the distance and that this was indeed the trail The trail itself was covered with bark dust, and even with these helpful features I ended up in the parking lot twice.
At one point along the trail is an uprooted dead juniper. What makes it worthy of examination is the large rock that the root wad enveloped: basic bubbled basalt that was tucked up almost to the trunk. Near the 0.6 post, two junipers had shared a same spot, but one had been sawed off about a foot up off the ground. A small new tree is growing out of the trunk. There were no pines in the cluster of junipers, and then suddenly, there were Ponderosas of various ages on both sides of trail.
I made two laps of the trail, which totaled about 1.24 miles. The first took about nineteen minutes, the second, about fifteen, mainly because I wasn't getting lost. Then I decided to go up the Larkspur Trail, which is 3.4 miles long, but I only went a short while, about five minutes, between the small canal bed and the fences of the subdivision. I got to a cul-de-sac, turned around, and returned to the car.
Above: Photo of Larkspur Pavilion from http://bendparksandrec.org/parks__trails/facility__park_reservations/pavilions_picnic_areas/
Below: Photo of Senior Center and general landscape from http://kirbynagelhout.com/portfolio-item/bend-senior-center/
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