Oregon Trip: Day 4
June 14, 2007:
Yesterday was another light day. When I woke up, I spent about an hour talking with my cousin Seth and his adventures in Benin. Then, after getting ready for our day, Pam and I set out to Washington Park just West of downtown Portland.
Our first stop in the Park was the Japanese Gardens. It was very nice and peacful there. We went on the guided tour and learned a lot about it. We found out Washington Park was the 2nd or 3rd largest municipal park in the county. There are also three elements that are in every Japanese garden: plants, stone, and water. The water part could also be represented with dirt or gravel. There are also themes that are common: "hide and reveal" as well as "using something old in a new way." The whole park was the latter, as it used to be the site for the old zoo. They also used stones from the road before they used paved and they also used stone from the old civic center. They even used roof tile as edging for some the plant beds. "HIde and reveal" was just the art of being able to keep the garden hidden until you walk through a certain area, in which the whole garden is revealed at once. The walk up the garden even had an authentic ancient gateway flown in from Japan.
Our next stop was the International Rose Test Garden. It was just simply overwhelming! There were so many roses in bloom that I didn't know what to do with them all. If we were to take the time to stop and smell the roses, we would of been there all day :) They also had a wonderful ampitheatre and they were about to start A Midsummer Night's Dream, but we were getting hungry and set on our way.
I had originally wanted to get on the freeway and head back to Jan and Bob's, but I couldn't quite find the way (I wasn't in a hurry, so I was trying it without a map) We followed a sign for a scenic drive down the hills west of Portland, which was very very zigzaggy. At some points the speed limit went down to 10mph. After we got to southeast Portland and still couldn't figure out how to get on a freeway, I pulled out a map.
After getting my bearings straight with the map, we started heading towards the freeway while looking for food. We found an old restaurant/pub called Poor Richard's that we ate at. The food was pretty good, but a little overpriced. After lunch, we went straight back to Jan and Bob's.
The rest of the evening was spent having a large picnic with the whole family. This was the first time I had seen everyone from the week all in the same place, as well as my Dad's cousins Kristi and Jerry. Right before we started eating, I looked around for birds and saw my first Western Bluebird. After dinner, we all went for a walk on a trail down to the river. There was a tombstone along the way everyone stopped to look at. While they were looking, I heard chickadees going crazy down the way, so I walked over. Everyone else decided to keep going the opposite way. When I was walking over, I saw a large bird swoop in front of the path and back into the trees. When I got closer, I saw it looking at me. A Barred Owl. I was so excited; this was my first owl! It was just sitting there, facing away from me, but head turned completely around and looking at me. After it flew back and mostly out of view I went back to meet the others and told them my news. I contingent of them came back with me to see if we could spot the owl again, but we couldn't find it :(
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