Looks like it going to heat up agin. Find out how hot is suppose to get with our local weather coverage.
Here are some of the stories that grabbed our readers’ attention this weekend.
I’ve never walked Fourth Plain until now.
At 9:23 a.m. I toss my car keys in my backpack and head toward Fourth Plain Boulevard with Columbian photographer Alisha Jucevic. She has been on staff only a couple of months, so this is new to her too.
Our destination is Thurston Way, which is 3½ miles east. Stops along the way will add to our mileage and, ideally, our understanding of this diverse area, now on the crux of change.
Will its diverse and vulnerable residents and merchants see their lives improve? New apartments, burgeoning businesses, improved streets and sidewalks, colorful murals and revamped buildings are all beginning to change the look and feel of Fourth Plain, to make it more of a whole place.
Find out what reporter Patty Hastings discovered on her walk along Fourth Plain.
AMBOY — You wouldn’t expect to find a whole other world nestled in the steep, winding foothills approaching Lake Merwin — that is, unless you’re a devoted camper.
Driving along the fern- and Douglas fir-lined streets of Lake Merwin Campers Hideaway, you’ll find 1,500 developed RV camping lots and support facilities that turn the rustic hilly area into a fully functioning small town, especially in the summer months. But the laid-back nature of the place also makes it a throwback to another time and style of life, said Kevin LaFurge, camp manager.
Learn more about the hidden treasure that is Lake Merwin.
Change is in a hurry on Four Seasons Lane.
Thousands of pounds of excavation and terrain grading equipment have parked at the Landover-Sharmel neighborhood hamlet. At the base of the hill at Northeast 18th Street, construction crews mow, till and flatten land as they prepare to build a neighborhood of new housing.
Soon there will be 430 new houses there. Ground was just broken two weeks ago, and construction crews will spend the next year laying water and sewer pipes and other infrastructure.
Find out what is store for Landover-Sharmel.
WASHOUGAL — It was like a yellow hammock. It was like a half-chomped wheel of cheddar. Or, it was like a huge smile in the sky. How about a big yellow toenail clipping?
That was the view from Clark County, where on Aug. 21 the moon briefly covered 99 percent of the sun. If you’d traveled down into the path of totality, though, the solar eclipse was like nothing in this world. Silence and strangeness. Nighttime in the morning. A black void surrounded by streamers of cosmic fire.
John and Anni Becker Furniss didn’t travel down there; they went to a downtown Washougal gathering where John stood in the changing sunshine while Anni read him poetry and descriptions by artistic friends (and complete strangers) who participated in her Facebook event, “Eclipse for the Blind.”
Read more about “Eclipse for the Blind.”
For Phil Phimister, it didn’t matter if you were fast or slow.
It didn’t matter if you were one of the thousands of runners he coached at Prairie High School or whether you competed for a different team.
If you were a runner, Phimister wanted you to enjoy the sport and maybe get a little faster in the process.
