On weekday afternoons, the Chehalis Western Trail can get quite crowded, especially when the weather is nice. And since there are quite a few residential neighborhoods up against the trails, there's plenty of pedestrians.

It's tricky, because some of the most popular walking spots are the same flat straight stretches where I can easily get going to 15 mph, and happily so. But of course I want to be both polite & safe.

People walking in the right lane, one or two abreast, steadily & evenly -- that's easy. A brief ring of the bell and then pass on the left. Depending on the speed, I may even say "good afternoon!" as I zip past.

People with dogs are a little trickier; how the dog seems to be walking influences how I alert, or whether I alert. Sometimes, ringing the bell or calling out freaks dogs out more than just getting by as fast as possible. And I am entirely not a dog person. Some people stop when I call/ring and hold their dogs close until I'm well past.

Little kids (with adults) require the same sort of caution, although a verbal warning is almost always for the best. Same with larger, more meandering groups of people.

Yesterday was entertaining, though. Just south of 37th, I encountered a huge group of kids from Komachin Middle School, either track or soccer as far as I could tell. The signal of the bell didn't mean anything to them, as it does to regular walkers, and of course there's that special obliviousness of middle-school kids.

Here is our OlyBlog thread on this

Fundraising site for Patrick and family

Patrick Menendez works as a support technician at ReachONE Internet. On his way home from work Monday evening February 4th, he got off the city bus and was then struck by a drunken driver in a Ford F-150 pickup truck about 8:15 pm. The driver of the pickup truck did not stop.

Fortunately, a concerned driver followed the truck to downtown Olympia -- calling the police -- where the police arrested the man and took him to St. Peter's Hospital to assess his level of drunkenness.

The incident happened at Pacific Avenue near Sawyer Street in Olympia. If you have information regarding this hit and run, you are asked to contact Olympia police at 360-753-8300.

Patrick suffered a fracture in his hip, his left leg is broken in several places and his right knee was mangled.

For more information about the incident, please see http://HelpPatrickandMary.com