We had fun in Portland!

On Thursday the Loja had a dentist appointment, but it was too nice a day to stay inside. So Adam and set out to look around south of town in the Salem area. We drove out to Oregon Gardens, a private botanical garden (and now also resort). We stopped into their plant sale area and gift shop, but having just decided to go on a strict budget, we decided not to go into the gardens due to the $8 admission fee. The gardens did look to be a stunningly beautiful display garden. Instead we headed into Salem and took a quick look around, and stopped in every single little hole in the wall Mexican Tienda/Mercado to look for chayote (we’d only been telling Lora about them up to this point). We never did find it (until we found it at the big chain Fred Meyers the next day, D’oh!), but had fun looking.

One terrible shot of the Oregon Garden sign. Sorry!

Friday, we finally made it up to the Hoyt Arboretum, which is a great Arboretum, one of the few that seems to have stayed true to its mission, and does it well. Many of the trees were starting to turn color, and there were a few views of the mountains. After that we made our way down to the International Rose Test Gardens. Even in October, many, many plants were in bloom, and I can see why Portland is called the city of roses. Many seemed to grow at least 5-10 feet a year (the climbing ones anyways) and there seemed to be little evidence of powery mildew or other diseases.

Adam with Roger's selection of 'Roger's Red' California grape. The fruit was sweet.

Siberian Dogwood, changing color.

Sugar Maple, putting on a display.

A peek of downtown from above the Rose Garden

'Wildfire'

'Sheer Elegance'

'Distant Drums'

We skedaddled home and picked up Loja from school again, but this time we were heading out to the pumpkin patch and corn maze on Sauvie Island on the Columbia River. We passed some great bridges on the way there

The St. John's Bridge

The corn maze was HUGE! And so very, very muddy. We all skidded and slided, and splooshed our way through the maze, have great fun. Adam and Loja played hide, seek and chase in the maze, while Diana, Lora and Tony watched from a elevated bridge platform. It was hilarious! After that we went to the haystack pyramid, and Loja crawled through the dark tunnel, only to bump her head on the way out (thankfully nothing broken). Then it was time to pick out pumpkins. All three of the girls picked out pumpkins so huge, so ginormous, that we were sure they couldn’t possibly get them home. But luckily a cute guy on a tractor came by to offer hayrides to the those whose eyes were bigger than their calabashes. We went into the vegetable stand to look for dinner veggies, and came out with a nice butternut squash, after furtively flirting with the incredibly hot clerk named Alex.

Tony with a corn silk mustache.

Diana on her pumpkin.

Having worked up an appetite, we all went out to one of Lora and Loja’s favorite Ethiopian resturaunts (ask them, they have several favorites!) and had delicious platters of food spread before us. Diana taught Loja to hang a spoon off her nose, and who doesn’t like a kid with a spoon for a nose?

Saturday was a mellow day, just trying to recover from all we had been doing the previous few days, and getting ready to drive up to Seattle! Originally we were going to head up on Saturday, but Adam’s friend Will had been having some domestic chaos and suggested that we arrive later.

Loja making a carmel apple.