YPLT Bridge

Yesterday morning, I took advantage of cooler temperatures to take a walk out to the new footbridge on the Yelm Prairie Line Trail. The trail terminates where I was standing to take the photo, but eventually, an extension will take it to the town of Roy some four miles to the north. Western Washington has a remarkable bike/walking trail system already, and this is part of a grand plan to connect existing trails. As it stands right now, YPLT connects to several others, allowing ambitious riders to pedal to Tenino and Lacey/Olympia, with spurs to various other locations. The longest ride I've ever made on the network was just over sixty miles (round-trip distance), but that was ages ago. On this occasion, I went by shank's mare for a round trip of four miles, averaging 3 MPH. I was surprised to see that trail developers anticipated "love locks" being hung, and had even encouraged the practice somewhat by stipulating that they were to be placed only on the fence and not on the bridge structure. There are only a few at this time, and I particularly liked the brass "love birds."

Tragopogon Dubius, Salsify

Yellow Salsify (Tragopogon dubius) is also known as Oyster Plant (for the taste of its edible root) or Goat's-beard. The latter annoys me because it is also applied to a native shrub, Aruncus dioicus, totally unrelated beyond being vegetative. Salsify is an introduced (but not invasive) species and I first saw it growing in the disturbed soils of southwestern Washington prairies where it quickly found a special niche in my heart. The yellow flowers are only open early in the day, giving way to 3-4 inch diameter seed heads resembling enormous dandelion clocks. While walking on the Yelm Prairie Line Trail yesterday, I saw several fully open, but I had left my camera in the car. By the time I was able to return to the site with it, the flowers had already begun to close.