Summer Visit '13

Laurel and the grandkids hopped a United from a wedding in Denver to spend a few days in Oregon at the beginning of summer, 2013.  We set up a trailer in the yard to provide bedroom space and an extra bath and planned a busy schedule.

First was a dinner at Aomatsu to celebrate Matthew's upcoming 13th birthday.  Because it was raining, we started indoors: OMSI's "Mummies of the World"--the largest exhibition of mummies and related artifacts ever assembled (according to their website), including mummies (both man-made and accidental) and artifacts from Asia, Oceania, South America, Europe, and Egypt, dating as far back as 6,500 years.

Photographing inside was not allowed but I have my ways.

From OMSI we went to the Portland Art Museum to take in Cyclepedia, the third of PAM's design-oriented exhibition series (I went in 2011 to Allure of the Automobile; photos can be found elsewhere in this blog).  The 40 bicycles on display were from the collection of Vienna-based designer and bike aficionado Michael Embacher.  The examples were fascinating, but I had hoped for a more inclusive historical collection.

There were bicycles for racing, mountains, touring, tandem (side-by-side as well as fore-and-aft), folding, cargo, and a child's bike that converted into a stroller--I have included two I found especially interesting, a folding bike popular in China, and a bike designed for ice riding (not very successfully, according to the display text).

I also wanted to see MAN/WOMAN, so while the kids explored other art, Laurel and I took in the 50-odd bronze and marble works by Gaston Lachaise (American, born France, 1882-1935).

A fascinating set, clearly a precursor to Fernando Botero's buxom bronzes.

We stopped at Powell's and while Deb visited nearby second-hand clothiers, the rest of us took a break at Peet's where, as Matthew watched, Maren resisted my efforts to immortalize her eating whipped cream with a straw.

The rain stopped, we headed first for the hills:  Silver Falls State Park, one of the two destinations Laurel especially wanted to visit as we had a number of times when she was younger.  The trees, the creeks, and the falls of course are pretty much the same but the trails have changed: bricked near the parking lots by the lodges and cabins, paved and graveled elsewhere, with substantial railings in place along the cliffs.  South Falls is a lovely as ever.

We followed the trail under the falls along South Fork of Silver Creek.  Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) was blooming,

salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis) was ripening,

the walk was all I remembered,

but I had a special goal: a stump left from the logging of the old growth forest that once existed throughout the PNW, a stump we've admired every trip we've made to Silver Falls.  The earliest photo I've found is from 1979.

Laurel has climbed to the top, Judi stands by the springboard cuts and Silkie looks on (dogs are now forbidden on the trails.)

The next photo was taken in 2010 with Deb and Bogie and somewhat shrunken stump.  Today we can no longer climb to the top.  I wonder how much longer we'll be able to admire this memorial to the great forests.

We continued to Lower South Falls

and then back on Maple Ridge Trail, about 2 1/2 miles in all, enough to pretty much wipe us out for the rest of the day,

curtailing our plan to hike the Oregon Garden and the Frank Lloyd Wright house.  Instead, we drove, looked at what we could see from the car windows; perhaps we'll visit it another time.

Friday, the coast, the other destination on Laurel's list:  first Yaquina Head.  The light house was closed until July due to the sequester, we were told, but the outside is still impressive

and the Harbor Seals and cormorants are not affected by federal shenanigans.

On to Sea Lion Caves, one of the great sea grottos of the world.  I had forgotten that the elevator was completed only in 1961; prior to that date, to enter the cave, visitors used a quarter mile steep trail and a 135-step wood tower, remnants of which can still be seen at the north opening.

I got the feeling the grandkids were not as impressed by the experience as the adults; for the kids, Disney World is more exciting.

Saturday afternoon, we headed for Portland, stopping at Champoeg Park, the site of what may be the oldest structure in Oregon--the Donald Manson Barn,

 

thought to have been salvaged from the 1861 flood that washed away the town of Champoeg--and the oldest operating store, Butteville Store, founded in 1863, where we sampled ice cream.  The park features a pioneer-type garden

and small collections of pioneer artifacts, camp grounds, and bike trails.  In Portland, we wandered antique stores in the Sellwood district but nothing leapt out at us, and ate a scrumptious dinner at a Cena, then dropped the crew off at the Radisson for the 5:30 a.m. flight to Huntsville the next morning.

A nice summer's visit.

Bogie

Born 5-17-2005

Eight weeks.

Six months, with his buddy, Bugsy.

They often slept together.

About one year old.  When he wanted to play, he'd find the ball.  When he got tired of it, he'd hide the ball.

He loved to ride in the truck.  He would have driven if I had let him.

He knew what his main job was:  Let dogs and dog walkers in the street know he was guarding the ranch.

He never grew up.  He loved to race around the yard.  If you wanted to go in the house, he would grab your pant leg to hold you back.  "Stay and play."

I came home yesterday afternoon expecting to find him waiting.  His heart had given out only a few minutes before.

4-10-2013.

R.I.P.

Seattle, March 2013

It has been several years since we visited Seattle, a town we love, but this year the Pac 12 women's basketball tournament played at Key Arena, Seattle Center.  Deb is a member of Rebounders, the OSU women's BBall rooters, and since the club had arranged for hotel rooms at a discount, we reserved seats on the Coast Starlight and showed up at the Albany Amtrak station in typical Oregon sunshine.

The train was delayed—2 to 3 hours—so we took in the local antique stores and found a Dehillerin copper mixing bowl.  Toward 4 we stepped out on the platform

and were soon headed north, enjoying views one does not get from I-5.

In no time, it seemed, we were running under Burnside bridge in Portland

and into Union Station, one of the finest train stations architecturally in the U.S.

Then on to Seattle.  Because we were so late, we couldn't go to our usual haunt, F.X. McRory's, and instead took a cab to the Mediterranean, grabbed a bite, hit the sack.  Next morning to Pike Market to eat at Lowell's.

Beside the best corned beef hash one can find anywhere, we like the view—and we liked to feed seagulls from the windows, which annoyed no end other tenants and passers-by on the street some four floors below.  The sash windows have been replaced with sealed double-paned glass, obstructing one of our pleasures but the view is still great: Elliot Bay cranes, ferries, and now the Seattle Great Wheel, a smaller version of the London Eye.

We wandered the market, full of flowers, fresh food, fish,

then back to the hotel and Key Arena for the bb game where Benny was waiting.

The ladies played well, despite the officiating (three Beaves fouled out), but faded at the end.

The Rebounders met at a Queen Anne street bar to drown their their sorrows, then adjourned to Ten Mercer for a scrumptious "Dine Around Seattle" meal (3 courses, $30):  for me, stuffed eggplant rollotini, halibut with lobster hash and sherry aioli, followed by a vanilla bean custard (actually a crème brûlée); Deb chose lobster bisque, parmesan crusted sole, and profiteroles, shown here.  Yum, yum, yum.

After, a few of us took to the Mediterranean's roof patio for the night sights.

In the morning, Deb and I went to the Seattle Art Museum for its special "Treasures of Kenwood House, London."  Kenwood House, a great house on the northern boundary of Hampstead Heath, has been undergoing restorations, and fortunately for us, much of its art is on tour.

We had been to the SAM more than once before, but I had forgotten its impressive ethnographic collections, especially from Africa and the Pacific Northwest, which we examined before and after the Kenwood exhibit.

The Kenwood exhibit included van Dyck, Gainsborough, Reynolds, Frans Hals, Turner, and a late Rembrandt self portrait—which I photographed, much to the consternation of a guard who had been after me earlier for looking too closely at a painting.

We returned to Pike Market, enjoying the sights and smells but found the antique stalls had all disappeared, so we headed down to the bay and on the way discovered another bronze pig.

At Ye Olde Curiosity shop, Deb paid Madam X for a fortune:

                                                 Round and round the ball will spin
                                                 Till it draws your good luck in 
                                                 Ah, I can foretell for you
                                                 Good luck in a month or two.
Madam X went on to say "Put another 50¢ in the slot and I will tell you more," but Deb settled for the good luck.

We had to ride the "Seattle Great Wheel," at 175 feet tall, the largest observation ferris wheel on the west coast (they claim, but still less than half the height of the London Eye), three revolutions for $25.19 (senior rate).

e

Throughout, the gondolas stop to let passengers on and off so the ride is not continuous, making photographing easier for novices—and the views (though continually interrupted by wheel structure) are fine.

One of my goals this trip was to sample Olympias, Ostreola conchaphila, the only oyster native to the Pacific coast, once so plentiful that on the east shore of San Francisco Bay, shell middens were reported to be more than 60 feet high and 350 feet in diameter.  Olympias were driven almost to extinction by over-harvesting and water pollution, but are now enjoying a slow resurgence and are again available at a few specialty houses.  One of those is Elliott's Oyster House on Pier 56, where we headed next.  We sampled a number of oyster varieties, but the Olympia was by far the tastiest, and at $33 a dozen, probably the most expensive.  We tried other seafood: mussels, scallops, calamari, washed down with Genesis chardonnay and finished with chocolate souffle and Courvoisier.  Yum.

We wandered Pioneer Square, looking for antique stores that used to be scattered through the neighborhood but alas, have with a few exceptions shrunk or disappeared.  We found that the State Hotel was still advertising rooms for 75¢ but I suspect that the sign has been left more for atmosphere than for clientele.

We found Pacific Galleries antique mall on South Lander, 30,000 square feet of stuff that kept us busy for an hour or so.  Nothing leapt out at us but at least we found where some of the dealers have gone.

Back to Amtrak and a smooth trip, this time in daylight the entire way, along the shores of the East Passage, the Columbia, and finally the Willamette to Albany and home.