We left for lunch on another sunny, 90ish degree day, stopping at a Salem Jamba Juice/Subway and sampled some of both. Tasty and enough for now. We finally headed north with Josh for several general garden related sites. We tried visiting the Adelman Peony Gardens which actually was a small home-run business. A couple acres of just started to several foot large bushes, but not much to see this time of year. we decided not to stop. Next we headed to Schreiner's Iris. Also not a colorful time of year for iris, but interesting. MANY acres of large iris, all labeled, with groups of workers starting to dig the ryzomes and tractor them back to the main building for preparation to mail. Amazingly large, healthy plants. Grandma Creggar would have loved to see this!
As we headed back south and west for Silverton and the Oregon Garden, we happened by many acres of Reiner cherry trees and noticed a u-pick sign. We found only a few cars and a pleasant, local couple offering some plastic bags for their ill-prepared easterners. We also found the picking to be almost dream-like here in "God's Country"! In less than a 1/2 an hour we had well over 5 pounds picked in the bags, and I'm sure a pound or so in our stomachs.
On west a few miles outside Silverton we again found an out-of-season Codey's Gardens; guests were welcome but the establishment closed. Along the way were countless acres of various plantings of annual flowers, blueberry bushes, pines, trees, etc. of all descriptions destined for nurseries all over the country. These little detours down some gravel roads were quite something.We stopped for pizza but ended up at Happy Jing, a small Chinese restaurant on Westerfield street within walking distance of the Gardens. Nice to just relax and talk a bit. We took a shuttle bus over, however, because it happened to be loading as we started from the car. The gardens were filling with families enjoying balloon sculptures, face painting, various foods, a concert and other 4th related activities. We made several laps around the grounds in a couple hours, and decided not to wait another 1 1/2 hours for the fireworks to start. The gardens were nice, interesting at times, but not spectacular. A Frank Lloyd Wright designed house, The Gordon House, was there on the premises and we had a quick look around the outside of it. We headed out on foot, back to the car for a few cherries (unfortunately a bit over-heated) and a Dairy Queen snack.
We watched the fireworks from a local church parking lot where many others had gathered in hopes of being close enough to see well but not so close to be entangled in the mass departure. We were successful in both, and got Josh back for an earlier than normal bedtime for his trip up to the Portland airport to get Laura in the morning.
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