Notes from the Wildwood Trail
This afternoon, we put everything else down and headed out for an after-school hike with our daughter. In her younger days (she was barely beyond being a toddler), we had previously covered the Wildwood Trail from the Forestry Center down to the archery range, and we were overdue to pick it up from there.
What a wonderful stretch of trail that is, particularly right now, with the trillium in bloom. There is an absolute sea of trillium in evidence up there -- quite the sight to see. And not many people competing for the experience.
The dad-daughter conversation was scintillating, and the rain was barely making it through the gorgeous canopy of trees. But then came the jackpot as we took a detour down into the Japanese Garden. As the Mrs. and I discovered years ago, this is truly a special place, and it's even better with a precocious eight-year-old.
For the child admission fee, one gets a "hidden treasure" map, which sharpened our eyes to some features of the gardens that grown-up eyes clearly would have missed. We eventually accomplished our mission, but not without retracing our steps a couple of times to find some things that turned out to be wonderfully not obvious.
We trekked back to the car in time to miss the big rain -- we pitied the poor cyclists fighting their way over the Broadway Bridge in a hellacious downpour -- and got home just in time for dinner. Life is good.
| Posted at 7:35 PM | Permalink |
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Comments (9)
Sounds like a great evening, Jack. I've been meaning to make it up there again, hopefully sooner than later.
Posted by Joey Link | April 27, 2009 8:07 PM
Do it while the trillium is going. It will remind you why you live here.
Posted by Jack Bog | April 27, 2009 8:09 PM
Good stuff. Thanks for sharing.
Posted by Pete | April 27, 2009 8:10 PM
Dear Mr Bogdanski,
I've seen, for more than a few years, the "Keep Portland Weird" bumper stickers around town, and I understand the feelings of the locals like me. We like to be different, like when a few Portlanders vomited red, white & blue to welcome the first President Bush. A proud moment for me indeed. I also respect and admire those that "Keep Portland Real," Your attention to local politicians and their antics provides a great service to all of us who truly care about this fine city. Thanks for all you do, and thanks for taking the time to share what truly makes Portland special. A walk in the park!
Posted by Bad Brad | April 27, 2009 8:18 PM
Thank you. There are so many good things about Portland -- the foibles of our elected officials and bureaucrats sometimes obscure that.
Posted by Jack Bog | April 27, 2009 8:34 PM
You deserve the praise you get if for no other reason than the fact that the "other wordly" type items you jump on and we blab about, ya know, Creepy, rip out the VETERANS Colisum, build people of Little Merit a new park you know, SoWa and its trams and 10-thousand biotech job scams and on and on.
Thank you Jack for this great little article about the really important things that are critically important. Our families, the nature around us and the ned to keep things in perspective.
Better shut up, you'll chew me out for bein' sappy.
Posted by paul | April 27, 2009 10:03 PM
no actually chew me out for not spell checking.
Sheesh
Posted by paul | April 27, 2009 10:04 PM
Nice picture, nice post. There is, however, a cure coming for nature-induced euphoria:
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/04/invading_garlic_mustard_marche.html
Posted by Allan L. | April 28, 2009 9:52 AM
For a post that contains the line "we pitied the poor cyclists" I'm surprised the comment section didn't blow up like a stick of dynamite.
Posted by ep | April 28, 2009 1:27 PM