Forbes Street to Founders Bridge, East Hartford Leg

 

The girl child and I decided to take advantage of the cool rainy day today to take care of another tricky section of the trail.  This leg starts with the "East Hartford Tooth", a 4-mile On Road segment.  Originally we had planned on walking the sidewalked On Road portions of the trail as well as the dedicated trail, but our experiences in Willimantic showed me that the irregularity of sidewalk surfaces is not beneficial to my knee situation -- the only reason I've done so well to this point with all the walking is because the surfaces have been consistently level.  (The East Coast Greenway is a bike trail, so that makes it an ideal walking surface as well.)  So we drove "The Tooth" instead, and as such, have no photos of that portion, since I can't drive and snap photos at the same time.   Maybe in the future I'll hand the girl child the phone when we're on driving segments.

Anyway!  The above photo is where we started our 2.5 mile walk.  We wanted to do this section in the rain because the trailhead is in a kind of sketchy area.  Rain or not, we were asked for money from some of the current homeless residents the minute we stepped out of the car (we had The Map Man drop us as there is no nearby safe parking).  I wished I had thought to bring food with us to hand out, but I was really hoping we wouldn't run into anybody, and I haven't procured an appropriate backpack yet to carry things for any distance.

Above and below, this is just not the prettiest section of trail we've walked.

Above and below, less than 1/4 mile into our walk, we saw cars ahead on the off-road trail under the Charter Oak Bridge, which made me nervous enough that I texted The Map Man to keep tabs on us with our tracking app.  Turns out it was just construction workers. (Phew!!)

Once we were past the bridge construction, it was all relaxing and absolutely gorgeous and SO green as the trail winds its way along the Connecticut River for the next 2 miles. Enjoy the photos!

Above, the boat launch at Great River Park.

Below, one of the statuary along the river.

Above and below, the Founders Bridge.

Above and below, the switchback as the trail doubles back and climbs towards the Founders Bridge.

Above and below, an incredible mural, recently completed, in the Founders Bridge underpass as the trail follows East River Drive to the bridge ramp.

The end of our walk for today, where the trail meets the bridge.  Across the bridge and through Hartford being saved for another day.  From here we walked a very short distance to where The Map Man left the car for us.

35 miles walked, 39 miles traversed, 2961 miles to go!