Walking wonderland, Part 3

OK, following up on this post, I finally managed to get into the danged CAD in order to look this up.  The tract I had in mind for walking is marked as a right of way with no assigned parcel number.  It does not appear to be anyone's private property.

Near the top of the photo, do you see the words "40' R.O.W." (those letters stand for "right of way")?
And the Interurban easement running perpendicular to it to the lower left.  This strip is accessible from the Interurban.

That's just a wonderful little "secret passage" type of route connecting the Interurban to State Highway 3.

NICE!
It's about 700 feet in length.  This is the best-kept local secret I've stumbled upon (literally) in quite a while now. 

 A walk along this segment has something special associated with it:

Instant walking companions!!  Bonus!!
:-)
I remember back in January when I was sifting through records trying to track down who was developing the Gas Dude property, I stumbled upon a record for a nearby tract which actually had an ag exemption on it.  "Holy crap!" I thought to myself, wondering who was attempting to skirt their property taxes.  "There's no livestock near Centerpointe."  Well, someone slap me, because yes there is!  It's amazing what you discover when you actually get off your suburban duff and explore the world.  This is an absolutely beautiful 15-acre tract that is owned by someone who is very lucky to have both the land itself and these happy and very curious bovine munchers.  This is the northwesterly tract that the R.O.W. runs along. 

And following up on this other recent post (which I'm delighted to say was tweeted and read by like-minded folks world-wide), here's a very telling vignette from my yesterday.  While I was getting my head shaved hair cut, I mentioned some of this walking stuff to my stylist barber.  He paused thoughtfully and asked, "Is it safe?!"

Again we see an expression of fear based on a statistical misperception.  Nothing in this life is completely safe - even writing blog posts carries risks (what if the ceiling of my room spontaneously collapsed on my head?!  What if the house caught fire and I couldn't get out?!).  But walking around in daylight in our suburbs is pretty darned safe, especially with a feisty shepherd mix at the end of the leash. 

I didn't vet the quality of these particular data, which were screengrabbed from this site, but for the sake of argument, let's take them at face value.  Basically what they show is that the odds of getting murdered, raped, robbed, or assaulted around here are statistically miniscule.  But that's not the perception that folks tend to get from watching the evening news on TV.

Anyway, the Clear Lake Shores Farmers Market is beckoning, so I must close for the moment.  Happy walking!!  It sure is a perfect day for it.