You won't find them on a shortbread tin, but our ancestors live on so long as we keep telling their stories. Scots, Yanks, Canucks and the Auld Enemy. Newest posts are the ancestors, but scroll for the living.
Just outside of the Japanese Garden is a HUGE Rose Garden, which serves as a kind of public square for Portland families. The garden has hundreds of different kinds of roses, each layed out in 8 foot by 2 foot plots, side-by-side and end-to-end across acres of land. It’s simply overwhelming.
Summer vacation, finally, and I am hanging with the hippies of Portland, Oregon.
Part of the Oregon Zoo complex on the outskirts of Portland is a Japanese Garden, which is maticulously maintained. It’s rare that I feel like something was worth the cost of admission, but here not only was it a steal, I felt that my $8 was actually being folded back into the park itself. I can’t imagine how much they spend to keep this place up, but it is certainly more the cost of admission.
I had no idea that my hosting provider (lunarpages, not as evil as most hosts) actually provides its clients with as many instances of WordPress as we can handle. Now, I’m not a blog snob but I do like having the ability to categorize posts. How has blogger lasted so long without categories?
Anyway, it was a weekend’s worth of work, but 99.8% of that was formatting the display template. The default was “pretty,” but I wanted the look and feel to merged seamlessly with my main site.
I made my third shooting trip in three days today. It was miserably hot, and while I was pleasantly surprised at how big Prince William Forest Park was, I was startled at its lack of photogenic-ness (at least the Pyrite Mine Loop). A butterfly flirted with me for a couple of minutes (highlight of the afternoon), but then grew bored with me and flew off.
I had a spare Saturday night with little to do, so made my semi-annual treck around D.C.’s national monuments at night. I last did it in 2003, and haven’t done it with my new camera. It’s amazing how much of a difference the camera makes …
It’s Friday / Flexday season at work again finally, and I took the day to hike part of the Cedarville State Park, located about 15 miles southeast of the District. Interesting park, with lots of recreational opportunites, like fishing, boating and archery. Not a heck of a lot to look at, but there is pleant of it there to wander around.
Hiked another Nature Convervancy preserve, this on called the Fraser Preserve near Great Falls, Virginia.
It’s a nice hike, relatively flat and easily navigatable … except for one tiny little problem. Apparently, the trail crosses onto the property of a neighboors who doesn’t like the Conservancy much. There is a 5-string barbed wire fence blocking off fifteen (yes, 15) feet of the circuit trail. How much do you have to hate conservationists (not to mention the baptists that co-own the preserve) to do that?!?
To make matters worse, everything around that part of the path is swamp-land, so you have to go all the way back past the river and use the government access road to get across the property … just to get to where the blue blazed trail picks back up.
When you do make the trip, you’ll have the opportunity to stand at the barbed wire fence and stare at the neighboor has he fishes away on his fancy-pants barbed-off stream. I did, and it was a heck of a lot of fun … tho he didn’t seem to enjoy it that much.
Last weekend we took them to see the leading contender for the reception, The Heritage Inn and also look at the Primitive Baptist Church and Presbyterian Church in Clifton. Everyone was in agreement that Clifton, VA is a beautiful town and perfect spot for our wedding.
Right now we’re leaning toward using the Presbyterian Church. They are in the middle of expanding the church facilities but we were able to see the sanctuary. We loved it — the wood pews with carvings, the huge windows, and a bell with a real bell pull in the back of the sanctuary.
The biggest challenge will be picking out bridesmaid dresses that work well with the deep, vibrant red front curtain, pew cushions, and carpet. Oh, and there’s no center isle, so we’ll need to research if there are rules or superstitions that determine if it’s better to walk down the left or right aisle.
This past week I also finally managed to ask my bridal party to be part of our wedding: Christy is my m.o.h. (maid of honor). My bridesmaids are Melissa and sisters, Joanna and Nadine. Thankfully everyone said yes! Photos will follow soon … maybe.
Spent a cloudy day touring the National Arboretum in extreme Northeast DC. The trees and plants were wonderful, but due to the heavy clouds blotting out the sun, it was very hard to get anything to “pop.” Definately going to make a return trip some afternoon when the sun is a little more cooperative.
Every six months or so, my father and I try to take a couple of kayaks down the Shenandoah, using a great outrigger near Bentonville, Virginia. Despite how it looked in the pictures, we had pretty spectacular weather both days.
Short of my father trying to kill himself in Compton’s rapids (it was his turn this year, mine was last year), it was nother great trip. I look forward to it each time.