As mentioned previously, I jog at China Creek Park, which is near the Broadway campus of Vancouver Community College and the proverbial stone’s throw from the Millennium Line SkyTrain station. Here, via the magic of pictures, is a glimpse of the park from a non-satellite perspective.
First up, a wide shot of the park (click for a larger version):
Here you can see both baseball diamonds and the Expo and Millennium SkyTrain lines on the left. You can also make out the mulch-covered trail that runs the perimeter of the park and is where I jog. The trees provide meager cover on a hot, sunny day but the park overlords have thoughtfully provided a fountain:
Unfortunately, cretinous youths sometimes stuff reeds into the fountainhead (which can’t be removed with your fingertips), causing the fountain to spray water in a whimisical but not practical-for-drinking manner. And I know it’s kids that do it because all kids are evil.
Also evil, however, are crows.
At first I was ready to blame the appearance of soggy bread in the fountain on some spoiled child with a fussy palette (“I don’t like crusts!”) but then I espied a crow a short distance away with a great hunk of bread stuffed in its beak. It watched and waited as I took my picture, then flew over to dip his bread, au jus-style. I have to confess, it’s not really evil for the crow to do that. If nothing else, it suggests he is more civilized than many of the people who use the park. For example…
Here we see the small playground area and how the gravel has spilled onto the path. The fence is there to prevent tots from being brained by errant baseballs, a good plan if ever there was one. The jog before I took these pictures, there were a pair of kids here, each standing on one side of the fence. The one on the playground side was playing the game “Let’s throw gravel through the fence at the other kid!” The other kid did not seem to like this game so much.
The small brown sign warns about coyotes in the area and offers advice on what to do in the event of a coyote experience. I forgot to get a picture of it but will try to do so on a future visit.
Finally, what I had cheekily called rice paddies in the Google Maps image turned out to be a community garden growing along the hillside on the northwest corner of the park. Apparently poo has a special place there, for it gets its own sign:
The garden is a variety of flower beds, trees, bushes and vegetables, very nice and in full bloom this time of year. Although festively colored, the poo sign kept me from entering into the garden directly. It was too reminiscent of a minefield warning and I’ve played Company of Heroes. I know what mines can do.