Chapter 4: And Now For Something Completely Different
We woke up to good news and bad news.
The good news was that we were in an Embassy Suites, which meant we had a rare night with plenty of room for 6 people and the best free hotel breakfast we’ve been able to find.
The bad news was that apparently every Little League, softball, and soccer team in the greater Portland area had also found a good rate on this hotel and had chosen to stay there for the weekend. It took a bit of time to get our breakfast and find a table. But you’ll be happy to know that we persevered through adversity, because we are not quitters. At least, not when it comes to breakfast food.
Our itinerary gave us the morning to spend in Portland. When I looked for things to do in the area, I started with our normal go-to vacation activities. I looked for National Park sites, and considered the Lewis & Clark National Historic Site out near the coast—this was the area where they finally completed their journey and reached the Pacific Ocean. But that was going to take us too far out of our way. I looked at all of the other usual attractions: science museums, sports stadiums, amusement parks…not much popped up on the radar. Portland does have the
world’s largest independent bookstore, and I am a huge sucker for bookstores, so that was a consideration.
For a while, I was seriously considering spending the morning in the little town of McMinnville, Oregon (now THERE’s a vacation destination!) at the
Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum, home of Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose. This is the largest plane made entirely of wood (constructed during WWII at a time when there were serious restrictions on steel, aluminum, and other common building materials). It flew exactly once, about one mile at an altitude of 70 feet.
However, we were planning on visiting another aviation museum later in the trip, so there was muted enthusiasm from the family. I had remembered reading about
@pkondz 's
visit to the Portland area in his trip report, where he had spent time visiting the
Portland Japanese Garden. While pkondz is the DISBoards’ Leading Expert On Japanese Gardens, my knowledge of them can best be summed up as follows:
- They are gardens.
- They are built in a style created by the Japanese people.
Still, I appreciate natural beauty as much as anyone, and the rest of the family seemed enthusiastic about doing something a little different than we normally do on our trips. It’s nice to occasionally be reminded of the value of trying something new.
The gardens are located in a large city park (Washington Park) west of downtown which contains several other attractions, including the Oregon Zoo and Portland Children’s Museum. I knew parking would be at a premium, so we employed the Rope Drop Strategy once again and showed up a full hour before the Japanese Gardens opened. We found a space right out front with ease, paid the meter for a couple of hours, and then walked across the street away from the entrance.
What was across the street? I’m glad you asked (otherwise, this would have been a short update). There were tennis courts.
But, behind the tennis courts, the
International Rose Test Garden takes up a few acres of space. As its name suggests, this is a garden where hybridists from all over the world send new varieties of roses for testing under various characteristics such as blooms, color, fragrance, and disease resistance. It opened in 1917. The garden is free, which means they’ll let anyone wander in. Even my family.
The morning was foggy and there was a light drizzle. It was almost like we were in the Pacific Northwest. But it was never rainy enough to bother us, so we spent an hour wandering and enjoying the beauty of the garden.
We have a tendency to push ourselves close to exhaustion when we travel, in our neverending effort to see ALL THE THINGS. It was nice to spend time aimlessly wandering here, not in a rush. Maybe I should look more into this “relaxation” idea people keep talking about.
My favorites are the blooms that feature multiple colors. How do they do that?
The Japanese Gardens opened at 10 a.m., so we got in line about 5 minutes prior and were among the first to enter that morning. I texted pkondz a photo of where we were, and he seemed pleasantly surprised that we had decided to visit. I told him I had no idea what the various parts of the garden were supposed to symbolize, and he said, “Me neither. I just think they’re pretty and I like them.”
Works for me.
In order to keep little kids from becoming bored, there was a little scavenger hunt they could do to find various features in the gardens. Here you can see Drew working on his.
I have to admit—this was hard! Some of the clues would just say something like, “three crickets” and you were supposed to work out on your own that it meant some rocks that look like crickets.
Or, we just missed it completely and fooled ourselves into thinking the rocks were the answer.
Anyway, the gardens were beautiful.
(Continued Next Post)