Roses, Zoo & Soccer

Saturday was the first morning for our entire trip thus far that the alarm woke us up – 6am. We ate breakfast at the Fairfield and made the short trip east 10 miles or so to Washington Park. This 400 acre complex includes the Oregon Zoo as well as the International Rose Test Garden, Japanese Garden and Hoyt Arboretum. We drove by the Zoo entrance and decided to check out the Rose Garden, just 2 miles on down through the woods. Needless to say it was beautiful; too many roses, so little time! After an hour or so of wandering, smelling, oohing and ahhing (and several nasty comments about our NY cold, deer, Japanese beetles, etc) we drove back to the Zoo. Despite the construction and a large crowd (predominantly of younger and younger families as the years go by!) we enjoyed our stroll around the exhibits. Sea lions, polar bears, baby elephant and lorikeets were at the top of our list.

We drove back by the Rose garden for one quick final look, and to see if the clouds had cleared enough to see Mt Hood. Oh what crowds, with nowhere to even think about parking; it was tough to just drive through the area. We decided to stop by the Pittock Mansion, just a few miles north and west. This was far less crowed and an amazing building and view (still overcast so none of the 4 mountains were visible). One interesting happening we stumbled across was 3 or 4 “wedding parties” or so we initially thought. But the participants seemed consistently far too young… Turns out they were celebrations of Quinceaño - A Spanish/Mexican coming-of-age birthday party for 15 year old girls.

Hoping not to find the same traffic on the way south to Salem that we have seen the last several days, we decided to make sure we got an early start so as not to miss any of the Surge game (back in Salem). It was busy, but no problem, so that gave us plenty of time to stop and pick something! This time blackberries! What a treat, since we had once again let lunchtime slip into the afternoon. We were professionally informed that Marion berries (a native berry others had bragged about) are not necessarily overrated, but Sylvan and Katala berries are just as good. After eating almost a pint between the two kinds, I can’t imagine he is not right! We picked and packed our five pints into the trunk and headed out for the next course, blackberry appetizers now consumed. Just down the road we found “Papa Joes barbeque”. We split a Pork barbeque sandwich, which made us wish we had room for a whole sandwich each! The establishment cooks, and prepares their own meats, coleslaws, beans, etc.

We arrived in Salem an hour before game time, so it was nice to relax and just watch the guys warm up. Josh invited us up to the press box where he was preparing to do the game announcing since the regular announcer was unavailable. Josh had already put Laura to work, so they both spent the game in the “sky-box”. The Surge played well, so the 0-3 loss was not representative of the effort and many close scoring opportunities. We sat with the Brehms for the second half and enjoyed cheering and chatting with them. After the game much of the team went to Applebees, a valued sponsor of the Surge. Laura and Josh joined us for the meal, and talked about our activities of the past several days. After dropping them off we headed back north; no issues with traffic at midnight!!

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