pre-op / post-op

Nancy’s mom Neva flew in from Iowa last week ahead of Nancy’s surgery. This was Neva’s first visit to Portland and we had one day to spend with her before the surgery, so we took her to our favorite place: the Japanese garden. We’ve visited the garden before, but never in autumn, and it was even more beautiful.

Japanese gardens are very carefully designed, including “training” trees to grow into intended shapes using bamboo braces tied to tree limbs. But sometimes I think they become part of the art itself, like this little tree that seems to be playing the flute :-).

The visit also let Neva finally meet her “grandkids” Hank, Maggie, and Willow.

The surgery itself went very well, and Nancy has nothing but praise for the friendly and skilled medical staff. It was so great for both Nancy and me to have Neva here during Nancy’s surgery and the first weekend of her recovery. Thanks, Neva, we love you!

Thanks too, to all the friends and family who sent their best wishes :-)

artist in residence

Our latest visitors: Nancy’s cousin Val, her sculptor/photographer husband Marc, and their two 2-year-olds Isaac and Eli. We spent a fun week trying to keep up with the little’uns, who have way more energy than all us old folk put together :-).

Highlights of the week: playgrounds in parks all over the city, dinners at great restaurants, waterfalls in the Columbia River Gorge, the Portland Zoo, Portland Children’s Museum, a walking tour of the downtown art galleries & artists’ studios, a day at the coast, and a drive up Mount Hood to play in the snow at Timberline Lodge. And of course, the puppies — by the end of the first day, Isaac and Eli were already calling our house “the doggie house” and just about every day had to include a visit to the doggie house and a romp in the park with them :-).

just passin’ through

Tom, Chan, and the girls are on their big cross-country tour from California back to the midwest, and we were fortunate enough to be on their route. Nancy and I are on our own stay-at-home vacation this week, so we got to spend a whole day with them visiting some favorite Portland highlights. Gotta like that! :-)

 

Fun activities included strolls around the neighborhood, board games, and a trip to the newly-renovated Luscher Farm off-leash dog park. But the highlight of the day was a visit to the Columbia River Gorge (previously seen here and here), starting at the Crown Point Vista House.

It’s pretty obvious why they decided to call it the “Vista House”, with great views up the Gorge. One often-overlooked view is of the farmland on the heights above the Gorge on the northern Washington State side of the river.

 

After taking in the views from a distance, we decided to get up close and personal with the landscape, driving on to Multnomah Falls and hiking up the mile-long trail to the top of the 600+ foot high waterfall. We take our time admiring the view looking down the falls from above before setting off back down the trail with a new destination: dinner and dessert at Jen and Tylor’s house! :-)

 

a gorgeous day

Our friends Anne and Edwin and their son Ian, came up to visit for a quick weekend visit. The forecast called for cold and rain, but fortunately all we got was the cold along with typically beautiful northwest clouds. So a drive up the Columbia River Gorge and hiking around the trails to see waterfalls was the agenda for the day.

Of course, with the winter snows beginning to melt and feed the streams that flow north from Mount Hood and fall over into the gorge, you can still get wet even on a sunny day :-). Multnomah Falls is over 600 feet high, and the spray travels quite a ways!

We decided that viewing the waterfalls from the bottom wasn’t enough, and set off on the trail that leads to the top of Multnomah Falls. It may only be 600 feet up, but it’s a mile long. Anne, Edwin, and Ian are in great shape and jogged part of the way up, while Nancy and I had a more leisurely pace to enjoy the views (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it! :-)

The view from the top was amazing, though twinges of acrophobia kept me from taking pictures. I did see an interesting bit of flotsam (jetsam?) where the spring-swollen stream had ripped away what looked like part of a hiking bridge from somewhere upstream.

While it is true that Nancy and I only seem to get out to the Gorge when people are visiting, so far we’ve had frequent enough visitors to keep us coming back pretty often!

Bainbridge Island gardens

Bainbridge Island, a short ferry ride across Puget Sound from Seattle, is home to many gardens that are open to the public on various days each year. Lisa came prepared with a list of gardens to visit, and we plotted a course to see as many as we could fit into our final Garden Tours day.

Who knew all these great gardens were basically in our back yard? Thanks, Lisa and Dave, for coming all the way from Iowa to share a most excellent close-to-home vacation with us :-).