The Japanese Gardens in Portland, OR

Lisa of www.fercryingoutloud.blogspot.com gave my family and I a wonderful, informative tour of the Japanese Gardens in Portland, Oregon this past weekend. It was such fun to meet a "Blog-buddy" in person! Again, Lisa, thank you for taking time out of your very busy schedule to accomodate us. We loved it! We loved YOU!

This is the Zig-Zag bridge. It would be a fun thing to have in the yard..though mine would be more of a zig-zag "path" since the only time a "bridge" would actually be needed would be during a typical mid-winter rainy season here.
The zig-zag design is so that the demons can't follow you because they can only travel in straight lines. Which makes me think I need to redesign my computer room/desk/area because the demons have certainly been busy in my little corner of cyberspace. Now the CD "drawer" refuses to open which makes having all of my Portland photos on a CD next to worthless at the moment. Luckily, I forgot to delete the last bunch of pictures from my camera. Camera. Need a new one of those too. This one has been having major issues with it's on-off button. Sometimes it requires a stab from a pen point, or a stick, or a few well chosen swear words to make the camera turn on. Or off. I almost bought a new one on the way to the airport last night..but decided I'd best do some homework first.

This fence gives me some ideas for a possible deer-barrier in my yard. It would have to be MUCH taller of course but I do have a huge patch of bamboo that needs thinning...

I suspect that the entire west coast is operating under smoke to some degree. Mt. Hood was barely visable through the haze but at least we didn't smell the smoke. Back in Sac, I can smell it, feel it, and see it. We flew over many fires and in between incredible cloud decks. There were fair weather cumulus clouds, swelling cumulus clouds and cumulus congestus clouds.There were also cirrostratus layers. And smoke. Lots and lots of smoke. It was very difficult to find any landmarks. Good thing the pilots have navagational instruments! ;>) I don't know what the flight was like going up because I'd made the near fatal mistake of booking an un-godly early one..I had to meet the shuttle at 3:15 AM...soooooo verrrrry tired....note; taking marvelous Meclizine HCL to curb motion sickness is a moot action when there has been only a modicum of sleep. It did not work for me. Very embarrassing to fly with one's head in a bag and making rude noises. I'll not do that again! Flight home was great.

If you look very hard at the sky above the um, is that the bank tower?.. the tallest of the Portland skyline buildings, you can see Mt Hood floating in the distance.

Oh how I love Oregon. I didn't want to come home. We spent a day in Corvallis at the da Vinci Festival too but that post will have to wait until I can wring my photos from the CD that the computer is refusing to allow in.