Taking steps, out and about inside my building - I live in a studio which is absolutely perfect for me, space-wise and location-wise.

I'm standing on the level of my front door, around the corner from it--this loop in the hallway is 67 of my steps around. I could take the steps down to the vestibule seen through that closed door or up to the second floor landing. I knew yesterday that it's time to take a walk up those stairs. Right at my fingertips, well, at my feet, the perfect way to get moving more and more on this road to recovery from surgery a week ago yesterday! To put some variety in my work out, complete with the safety of a handrail.



Ever curious, I decided to find online a diagram of wooden staircase parts so that I would know the exact name of what my hand grasped, of where my feet landed. I like a sturdy handrail connected to well-installed balusters. To tell you the truth, my all-time-fantasy hiking trail in the outdoors would come with just such a set up. I believe that my fear of heights would be negated as I held onto such a handrail.



Here's a direct look up the eleven treads in this riser, counting the landing at the top as eleven. Is that the way you count, officially as a carpenter? It's how I count as a walker.



At the top I turned left, looked out through the screen and took this photo. You can see the tile roof on the building's entrance, there to the right. The windows on the lower level on the left are mine! I have a total of eight, four in each room.



The first three you see are part of the four that make up the bonus room's outer wall--my twin bed, a narrow storage unit; a waist-high,long, narrow bookcase; and a chest of drawers are in there, too. This is a photo I took of the bonus room that first day, checking out the apartment. FYI, that silver vehicle across the street is the one whose alarm went off yesterday from approximately 3:30 p.m. until 5:09 p.m. when it ceased. Hallelujah!



There is an extra-wide opening with no door straight across from my bed which opens into my kitchen. I've gotten used to sleeping through the occasional refrigerator gurgle and/or electronic whir. Here you are looking through that opening and out the windows. You can see the building's entrance and the gutter. When we get a lot of rain, it sounds like I'm sleeping behind a waterfall. I love it!



In that photo taken from the upstairs landing, the one window you see at the start of the bow-window area is the first of the four in the living room. There is a bit of wall in between first one and the center two. That bit of wall is repeated between those center two and the fourth one at the opposite end of the bow. These windows grabbed hold of me when I first walked through the apartment's front door, sunshine streaming onto the hardwood floors. This is a photo of the center two windows and the fourth one--I took it on that same day when I first saw what turned out to be my new home.

Lunch in Bath on Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - doggone good food and great service at the Cafe Retro, and I survived the stairs!

Ah, my ice-cold Coca Cola and a glass with some ice cubes. Mighty fine--the only sort of pop I drank while in the UK, and then just twice. Those poppies enhance the paint color on the wall. I like the look of this still life photo, especially the curve in the wall beside the round table top.



Juliet's lunch, nachos. She reported that they were delicious.



My lunch, the Retro Breakfast. Doggone good, every single thing on the plate, doggone good. There was very little grease on the sausages or the mushrooms--they're just shiny in the photo.



The menu board out front which lists all the items in the All Day Retro Breakfast--that's why I wanted to eat at the Cafe Retro. Juliet went for the "Gluten Free Options Available!!!"




Great service from Jazz and Monika--so happy that they agreed that I could take their photo and put it on the blog. Thanks, ladies!



The view of the cafe from our table, a very pleasant place at the back of the room. Juliet came back to the table in a few moments and stated, "You're not going to like those stairs to the bathroom."



After walking down them, I decided they deserved a series of photos, starting from the bottom 'cause I'd be too afraid to take photos looking down. The first few steps back up to the ground level floor.



The next few--turning sharply and steeply. I couldn't get over how Monika rapidly walked up them, carrying plates of food in both hands!



You can get a better idea of the tightness of this turn and the steepness of these stairs in this photo.



Looking out onto the ground floor. Not quite there yet.



Looking back down the stairs. I took one photo, quickly. Whew. I walked down there and back up twice, once before we left after eating lunch and once before getting back on the coach--the ladies said it would be OK when I came back inside and asked them, since I'd already eaten there. Thanks, ladies!



One more photo. Thank goodness for the handrail which is solidly attached to the wall. And I held onto that narrow ledge of wood there on the right, until I could get my had up onto that pole attached to the wall.



Here I am in Bath after lunch--wearing my Blue Diamond PDX T-shirt (the Blue Diamond is my neighborhood bar where I thoroughly enjoy myself with their doggone good food, great service, and live music.) The red awnings in the background are on the windows of the Cafe Retro. And you can see the tower of the Bath Abbey in the background. I wish that we'd come straight to Bath from London instead of stopping at Windsor because we would have had more time to walk around and take in the sights of this lovely city.

Up and over and down and up and around and over.

Saturday afternoon I walked up onto and across the Burnside Bridge for the first time, from west to east, left to right in the photo. I paused every so often to take photos. From this one, you know that I made it all the way over the bridge and down to the east side of the river.


When I got to the east end of the bridge, I decided to walk down these steps. I held on tight enough to make my hand sort of dirty from running along the steel pipe handrail, but I made it to the sidewalk. I took this photo so you could see the stairs.

Here's some interesting info on the stairs that I found at the city of Portland's Web site: The historic nature of the Burnside Bridge prohibits any structure from adding any weight to the bridge: the connector that connects the Esplanade to the Burnside Bridge does not lean on the bridge, it merely 'kisses' the bridge. The connector is held in place by pilings sunk into a huge concrete base and the tower structure bears the weight of the stair truss.

When I got to the Eastbank Esplanade, I didn't take the floating sidewalk northward. Here's a photo of that part of it, though.


I walked from the Burnside Bridge to the pedestrian/bicycle ramp that connects to the Morrison Bridge.


Looking at the curved ramp, I decided I could make it up and around if I stayed on the inside of the curve. Here's a photo I took from the middle of the bridge, looking eastward toward the ramp.

I did feel short-lived moments of anxiety, but I'm actively working at overcoming my fear of bridges and heights, determined to increase my first-hand knowledge of these wonderful Willamette River bridges and the views from them.