Once in awhile-now and again-this is us

We tried another Airbnb in Portland, one we had booked in advance before we left home. After the first one, we were now apprehensive about this one. It looked cute online, but it was much, much smaller than it looked on the website. The price wasn’t much lower than a hotel either. So we think we’ll stick to hotels from now on. Everything is at your fingertips, you don’t have to drive around. The record player was a nice touch, but there were no Cher albums.

We went from this at the ⬇️Oregon Garden resort to⬆️that.

We met with Jessica and Carter the next morning. They took us to their favorite donut shop, Pips. It draws a big crowd, so there was a long line when we got there, a good sign right? It was totally worth the wait. They were hot, made fresh delicious donuts, some with unusual flavors like rhurbarb? I favored the cinnamon sugar.

We had plans to go to the International Rose Test Garden afterwards. This is where I first saw the ‘Distant Drums’ rose back in 2010. I fell in love with it and just had to have one.

It wasn’t easy finding one though. This was before every business had a website so I had to make phone calls to every nursery in and around Long Beach, but no one had that rose and couldn’t even order one. Time passed and I finally found a nursery in Pasadena that could order one. Then the wait until we got the call come get it.

My brother Ted loved this rose. Never touching, never even smelling it, just from the emails I sent and blog posts he looked at.

Just as he loved Midas🐈‍⬛ never holding, petting, or hearing him purr. Again, only seeing the photos in emails and he especially loved the posts of Midas.

Now back to the gardens:

here’s one of the roses they thought they might like for their yard

so many beautiful roses but my photos unfortunately couldn’t capture that beauty

I guess that’s enough roses for one day for you guys. I could go on and on but you get the point, I love roses, I love those little ones below. What do you love? Tell me in your comments, which I love getting. All of you bless me in a special way with your words.

oh dear, what is that guilty look for girls?

stay tuned for the video, I hopefully will figure out 🤞🏻

💗jilly

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After leaving the Oregon gardens, enjoying another fantastic complimentary breakfast, unfortunately those delicious potatoes weren’t being served that day. (I’ll show you how to make my potatoes and eggs again Thuy).

on the way to Portland we drove through the neighborhood of Silverton, where the gardens are located. Then to the charming little town. I found this store that I could have spent so much time and money in, but I kept my head on and walked out empty handed, but with many cool ideas instead.

Silverton is known for its murals displayed all over town. The one above is honoring a doctor while a lot are displaying the history of the town. But the one I wanted to see again was the one below.

I have posted this on the blog before, Norman Rockwell’s famous paintings reproduced as a mural in Silverton. It was one time we were here in August 2014. I felt compelled to post it again. It’s more important than ever to believe in these four freedoms. And of course I love Norman Rockwell’s work so this one especially spoke to me before and then again this trip. Does it speak to you?

It’s a rough time right now, but we’ve made it through those rough and tragic times before, and we can make it through again…can’t we?…will we?…let’s all believe we can and will.

It was a nice day as we headed towards Portland. We love traveling back roads, we especially enjoyed it in the coach. You could stop anywhere and have lunch, a potty break, take pictures, a nap, all comfortably.

We always stop for horses, this time they were too far away. So we stopped to see some sheep, they weren’t very interested in us as horses are. One sure kept his eye on us though. The lookout I guess.

Another time it was to take a picture of this strange plant. It was growing everywhere, miles and miles of it. Some of them were much taller, all growing on poles.

Google lens told me it was hops, the flowers(google photo) are used to give an IPA beer it’s distinctive taste. Those were short vines compared to the 25 feet they can reach, growing up to 12in. a day. The Willamette Valley is home to acres of land dedicated to growing this plant. There’s a rich history of over a century of farming hops in the Pacific Northwest, which has the perfect weather, on all counts for hops. There are countless breweries in Oregon, some of my favorites in fact. It was here the first IPA in America was introduced in 1975. An IPA is the only beer worth drinking in my opinion.🍺

Of course an espresso martini is above and beyond a beer any day😋

As we were getting closer to Portland, we got glimpses of Mount Hood. This isn’t a good picture, we were too far away, but it was beautiful that day to be sightseeing.

It’s in the Cascades mountain range. It’s an active volcano, but hasn’t erupted since 1866. It is considered a high risk volcano.

Mount Rainer being the second at risk in that range. I couldn’t get a picture of it but saw it through buildings, trees, freeways. It was beautiful too. We used it in one of our Christmas card as a backdrop in 2010.

Looks like the girls are having fun with their daddy

My how the have grown.

Portland is next

stay tuned

💗jilly

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