A Personal Amateur Photography Blog
The Memorial Day holiday was a perfect 75 degrees and sunny.
The flowers along the streetlights in Nationwide Plaza are in bloom.
That can only mean one thing – The Roses Are Out at the Columbus Rose Garden!
A day in Dayton started at Wegerzyn Gardens.
Our last province, British Columbia. As the saying goes, we saved the best for last!
We start out in far southeastern BC at the town of Sparwood. Named for the lumber that went into making spars (poles) for ships, Sparwood is a mining town. As you enter town you can’t miss Terex Titan, one of the largest trucks in the world, now retired in front of the visitor center.
Eastern BC has a number of great waterfalls including those below: Helmcken, Dawson and Rearguard Falls.
The town of Lake Country BC is home to a Kangaroo Farm! It was very cool, especially holding a baby kangaroo.
High above the town of Kamloops is the Myrna Canyon Trestle Trail. Once a railway, now one of the best bike paths anywhere.
In Hope BC there is another path, much lower that goes through the Othello Tunnels. Nearby is the Bridal Veil Falls.
The Vancouver suburb of Burnaby has a great park with these native statues. The persistent rain and fog added to the atmosphere.
Capilano Park in North Vancouver has an amazing bridge (that bounces!) and a forest canopy walk, along with more totem poles.
Vancouver is one of the world’s great cities. Situated on a bay, with islands and the mountains, the views are fantastic. They have height limits on the buildings so that they don’t block the views.
The Museum of Anthropology has the largest native sculpture collection anywhere.
Vancouver is even better from the ‘Lookout’, especially after a nice walk along the harbour.
Vancouver has character!
Our final stop is Victoria, on Vancouver Island (which Vancouver is not). BC Ferries will get you there.
The city is the capital of the province, and has a great history.
It is also home to numerous gardens, including Hartley Castle and Gardens.
Our virtual trips across North America has come to an end, but there is more coming – up next Chicago – History through Maps and Photos…. stay tuned.
We have reached the end of the trail – the Oregon Trail. Welcome to Oregon.
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The Oregon State Capitol is in the city of Salem. This building was completed in the 1930s, replacing a more traditional looking building that dated from the 1870s. This building was destroyed in a major fire in 1935.
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Symbols of the Day
State Crustacean – Dungeness Crab (photos from statesymbols.org)
State Mother – Tabitha Moffatt Brown. Tabitha was 66 years old in 1946 when she traveled the Oregon Trail from Missouri. Once there she built a home and school for orphans, as well as provided writings that gave a female view of the times she lived.
The traditional end of the Oregon Trail was in the town of Oregon City, now a Portland suburb.
Portland is the largest city in Oregon, and the center of business and industry. While Portland borrowed the expression ‘Keep … weird’ from Austin, Texas, it is well deserved, as the city has it’s own unique vibe in the arts, culture and entertainment.
It is a beautiful city, one of my favorites.
Portland is known as the Rose City – and it is appropriate. They even have an evening Rose Parade in May, but in true fashion it is not a bunch of floats of flowers like Pasadena, it is a colorful event that is billed as ‘The Cleanest Parade in the Country’, as the last few things to pass are street cleaners, and all the attendees put their trash away!
Eugene is home to the University of Oregon. Along with nearby Cottage Grove it was also the filming location for Animal House.
Grants Pass has a number of fiberglass, decorated bears around town. Many are made and sold to raise money for local non profits.
Jacksonville is a picturesque small southern Oregon town. In the 1850s it was a gold rush town, today it thrives on tourism.
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Florence, Oregon is a town of 9000 along the Oregon Coast, where it meets the Siuslaw River. It is also home to Sea Lion Caves, This massive cave is at the bottom of a 300′ high cliff.
Heceta Head Lighthouse is one of the postcard views of the coast.
Yaquina Head Lighthouse is another picturesque lighthouse just up the coast. Nearby coastal areas are teeming with life.
Tillamook once had a naval air station with blimps. As a result they have a massive World War II era hangar.
Lincoln City has a motel with a great collection of giant Tiki Men.
As we moved north we arrived in Seaside, which has a statue of Lewis and Clark at the Ocean, but they actually arrived further north at Astoria (next).
Astoria, Oregon is where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean. As noted it is where Lewis and Clark founded Fort Clatsop. It has a long fishing industry history.
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Oregon is filled with volcanoes.
Crater Lakes is one of the most beautiful places we have ever been. It is situated high in the mountains, and gets pounded by snow all winter. We arrived in early June when the roads had just opened.
Crater Lake is a result of a collapse of a volcano. As a result it is the deepest lake in the country, with a depth of almost 2000′.
It is home to a National Park.
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Oregon has numerous beautiful waterfalls, most are along the Columbia River Gorge east of Portland.
Multnomah Falls is the tallest at 611′, but there are many beautiful waterfalls in this area and beyond,
The Rouge Gorge downhill from Crater Lake has a number of smaller ones, but still a beautiful setting.
Enrique Larreta was an Argentine Nobel Prize winning author who collected an amazing amount of Spanish art. He housed this collection in his home in the Belgrano neighbhorhood of Buenos Aires.
After his death the city took over the home and gardens and established a museum, later renamed in honor of him.
The gardens are equally as beautiful.
In our experiences in Buenos Aires nearly everything we have done has exceeded our expectations. The Japanese Gardens ended that streak.
While nice, it was overcrowded, small and not very noteworthy for it’s beauty. Still nearly everywhere will yield nice photos if you try hard enough.
Dating from the late 1800s, the Carlos Thays Botanicall Garden is a beautiful setting for the plants, trees, sculptures and buildings that make up the 17 acre urban oasis. It is located just off the Plaza italia.
As noted in the previous posting the Montreal Botanical Gardens has a number of specialty gardens that are extraordinary. The Chinese Gardens is the best.
As a bonus the Japanese Gardens are right next door!
The Montreal Botanical Gardens is one of the finest, if not the finest, botanical gardens in North America. It has a large number of specialty gardens, such as a Chinese Gardens (covered in a separate posting), as well as numerous thematic gardens – including one dedicated to poisonous plants!
Overall the gardens are amazingly beautiful, and well kept.
A beautiful Saturday afternoon was the perfect time to go for a walk around the neighborhood. Only in this case we chose to go to the ‘Detroit Shoreway’ neighborhood in Cleveland for our walk.
Why – because this neighborhood, and many others in Cleveland, were participating in ‘GardenWalk Cleveland 2019’. We were fortunate enough to meet one of the founders of Cleveland’s, who said they go the idea from Buffalo, New York’s.
The Detroit Shoreway neighborhood is named so from Detroit Avenue, which is the original road from Cleveland to Detroit, and it is located along Lake Erie. Most of the homes in the neighborhood are over 100 years old, with many being exquisitely restored.
For the Garden Walk there were over 80 gardens to see, each with their own unique interpretation! Each had a sign indicating they were participating in the walk, and to guide us to which part of the yard was open (front, side, back)
