Japanese Gardens, Portland

More catching up. Summer is never quite the hang-by-the-river experience that I am longing for. I dream of cookouts, and margaritas. The reality is somewhat more hang-by-the-watercooler, if we did that sort of thing at work. Actually, it is hang out by the computer and design stuff, or hang out by the printer and make tees. In less cryptic terms: work. Summer is busy for a screen print shop. After August it cools down a bit, and we have time for more life in our lives. Sometime late August we made it to the Japanese Gardens in Portland, where I  had been wanting to go for a while.

The gardens are billed as 5.5 acres, and 5 separate garden styles, and I thought that they would take up more of the day that they did. It is possible that a more leisurely walk through would be possible if you go with just your honey. Not so much with your honey and a twelve year old, for whom life is about what is next. Always, what is next. I tried to explain about the Zen.  Twelve is not a very Zen age.  The gardens have Zen covered though.

After the gardens we walked over to the rose test gardens which are equally stunning in a pleasantly down the rabbit hole kind of a way. They are also free, which is nice, and judging by the lots of people, seem to be The Place To Be in Portland on a sunny Saturday afternoon.