On our way to the coast we drove through Portland and decided to stop at the Rose Gardens since we were too early to check into our rental house. I had been here on other visits, but never during June, which is prime time for roses! So of course we stopped. But it was SO crowded, and SO hot, and there was some sort of loud Gay Pride concert going on…so I'm not sure we got the very most we could out of the experience. Unless you count seeing people in…interesting…costumes as part of the experience…which maybe, in Portland, it is. Ha. Mostly all we could think about was where the next patch of shade was going to be, and how soon we could get into it and collapse. It was 105 degrees outside!!
Still. Roses! Millions of roses everywhere! So at least I enjoyed it, and my long-suffering children have learned to be good sports over all these years of me dragging them to botanical gardens and demanding that they enjoy the beautiful flowers.
Look at all those hot rosy cheeks! Poor things.
Junie had put on her rose dress that morning specially for the occasion (after I informed her that Portland was the "city of roses"). She was hoping to be camouflaged in the roses "like a chameleon," she said. And indeed. You can hardly find her in this picture, right?
Whole hillsides full of roses! It's really such a lovely place.
These poor, hot boys. They plastered on smiles for the next picture, but this one is more true-to-life.
Teddy was surprisingly good natured, though! After hearing the girls saying, "Take a picture of me with these pink ones! Take a picture of me with these orange ones!" over and over, he asked me to "Take me a picture of GREEEEEN, Mommy!" (That's been his favorite color since before he ought to have even known about favorite colors—I guess here he was meaning these green leaves?)
He got all rosy-cheeked too.
There are so many different colors (and smells!) of roses that it was hard to take it all in. I recognized some of the varieties, but lots were entirely new—and even the ones I've seen before looked especially gorgeous and vibrant. They must love that Oregon soil. Usually you see those perfect-looking single blooms in pictures, but some of what was so pretty about this garden was the profusion of blooms! All crammed in together and bursting with color. I loved it.
I loved this variety because the blooms changed so much over their…life cycle? You can see the bright orangish bud, opening to yellow, and then fading to a sort of peachy white as they got older! So interesting.
Well. When we'd had all we could stand of the roses, we climbed back in the car (SO grateful for our working air conditioning) and drove that beautiful drive from Portland to the coast.
As we passed through Tillamook, it was a lovely 75°, and we could see misty clouds massing over the green mountains. And as we drove toward and into them, it was like driving into another continent or something! We could hardly believe this was the same day or the same state. It was cloudy and grey and COOL. So wonderfully cool. When I checked the temperature again it was 55 °!
It felt so, so nice. We walked on the beach that evening after getting settled in our house, and some of the kids were even shivering a bit, but I just felt like I could enjoy the cool air forever!
Junie got all curly and windblown
We met some guys catching crabs in crab traps, which was interesting to watch. This guy let Junie throw one of his crabs (an unacceptable one, I guess) back into the water. (She wound up with her arm way over her head, and then with a mighty heave, threw the crab…about 2 feet away from her. Ha ha.)
The sun even peeked out on the distant mountains across the bay, making them look so bright and green. It was beautiful!
Still can't believe it was that hot in Portland! It's true we did get that a few days each summer we were there but it was rare and never in June!
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