Monday - Today's agenda was Washington Park in downtown Portland. Along the way, we passed this bronze Thompson Elk Statue in a roundabout.
A lot of construction in downtown Portland had our tour guide, Joy, taking us up and down some unusual streets, but we made it to the park and started at the beautiful Rose Garden. This park has other things to offer, but we were only up to the Rose Garden and the Japanese Garden. We are old people, after all.
The terraced ampitheatre was beautiful, as were the roses. Some had a nice smell, others not much smell at all.
I don't know that my mother ever quoted Shakespeare, but this could have been her mantra.
Joy and I went to the directory and found where the Peace Rose was planted, and we went off looking for that, since it was my mother's favorite. She would have loved this place.
We found a crew that Dixie needs to take home with her to help with all her gardening, and the overseer was standing close to his inmates.
On the way out, we passed this beautiful tree, I don't know what it was, but I would like to have one.
Back to the parking lot, we got our tickets to the Japanese Garden and headed that way. Jim and Collins were tired of walking, and the Japanese Garden was lots of steps, so they, along with Marilyn, headed back to Joys.
This was pretty, but nothing to like Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island. Not much blooming, but lots of very trimmed bushes, ponds, waterfalls, and little stone statues.
Lots of healthy koi in the ponds
Some pretty waterfalls, and moss-covered banks.
Here come Lewis and Clark, exploring.
Joe reminded Dixie that Oregon has a law if you are holding up more than 5 vehicles, then you are supposed to pull over. They had quite a line behind them.
Letting traffic clear, this was our passing lane. There were probably 20 people behind us when we stopped here.
This last area called the Flat Garden was designed to showcase the beauty of each season. The laceleaf Japanese maple represents autumn,
the weeping cherry signifies spring,
winter is represented by the black pines in the background,
and summer by the cool "water" of the raked gravel.
I guess raking is supposed to be a restful exercise, but I never got that when I raked at home. Behind this "raked gravel" was the Pavilion Gallery with a lovely display of kimonos.
We were tired and hungry by now, so we headed back to Joys for leftovers from our picnic. Rachel arrived shortly after we did, and she did get to have her euchre game, which took the rest of the afternoon. One game took 25 hands, we were playing like Fred and Lucille, with scores minus zero. Joy bid "2" one time and said that could mean that she had one trump in her hand and one in her partner's hand -- that's the way the game went.
I walked down to Joy and Rich's garden, and took a couple of pictures of their house and yard (I forgot to take any of the garden, which is doing nicely).
We finished our evening by going to a Mexican restaurant for dinner. Joe nor I had slept well last night, and instead of ordering a diet coke, I decided to get a strawberry margarita like Joy, which I'm pretty sure made me tired and hopefully will put me right to sleep. We were gone from the camper from about 10:00 until 9:00 (made it back before curfew though), so it was a long day, but a fun one. It stayed chilly all day, I kept my sweater on. I'm guessing it made 70 about 4:00, the heat of the day here. Time to call it a day.
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