Pier Park – things are looking Grimm

After watching Grimm on Monday night, we thought Pier Park looked awesome. Like a Disney sitcom, we yelled in unison,”Hey! We ought to check it out!” (In case you missed it, that Blootbot guy takes the pharmacy fox on a romantic picnic there.) According to my Google map, it only takes 28 minutes to drive there, which might explain why I had never heard of it. Still, Sundays are always good for exploring.

Of course, yesterday the wind blew down a limb from a nearby plum tree. Meaning, we are currently up to our eyeballs in plums. A forager’s burden…Now we must process the plums. The kitchen’s filled with jars and there’s no room to make lunch. Our easy picnic solution? Swing by the Vietnamese bakery to pick up some banh mi sandwiches. They are super delicious! I highly recommend them.

Well, Pier Park is not what I thought it would be. TV really does amp up the glamour factor. The trees are certainly tall, but there are a lot of people just milling about sucking on brewskis (despite the many signs warning against such behavior). In our neck of Portland, people are also swilling beer, but at least they disguise it in Big Gulp cups or strategically crumpled paper bags. Patrons of Pier Park didn’t look too concerned about breaking any rules, so I just “tsk-tsked,” to myself and tried to look the other way.

I shouldn’t be so harsh, though. There were a lot of parents and kids there, too. Not everyone was drinking beer. And, it seemed like there were a lot of middle schoolers trying to woo each other…but I could be suffering from an overactive imagination. It’s entirely possible either way.

The kids loved the playground.

The little one thought maybe the slide would be fun, but when she reached the top, she decided her boots would ruin her ride. She slowly backed her way back down the ladder.

The wading pool is beautifully decorated with a tile mosaic,

and surrounded by strange quotes.

There is a disc golf course, and strangely several people were playing. The beginning bench looks like the perfect place to sit and get yourself ready to play (wink, wink)…I wish I had taken a picture of it, but I didn’t think of it until just now.

Sophia led us around on the paths. She really enjoyed herself and cried quite a bit when she realized that she had inadvertently led us back to the car.

On the way home, we had to stop at Sheridan’s to pick up some steelhead. I have never seen Sam drive past Sheridan’s without stopping in for some fish.

He claims that once he did drive past, but he ended up regretting it the rest of the day. Scratch that, the week!

Columbia Children’s Arboretum

A magical vortex shrouded in a complex mystery? Maybe.

 

Almost impossible to find, we drove around for miles before we finally located a tiny portal that led into the shaggy garden.

Although the trees are indeed tagged, like any arboretum might do, the grounds are almost forgotten.

Left messy and unkempt, tree rubbish stands a foot deep.

Critters skittered from beneath our steps. The grass was as tall as my toddler.

I had never heard of this place before, and stumbled upon it by accident while searching online for a good picnicking spot.

It has tables and wasp traps, but not a single other person was there, or appeared to have been there for many, many moons.

Maybe we mistakenly wandered into someone’s secret.

If not for the nagging buzz from the nearby racetrack, I might have been lost forever.

Tramping through the Reed Canyon

An Auspicious Morning

We dropped the eldest daughter off at preschool and planned on heading across the river to check out Tryon Creek…but I became less ambitious and just drove across the street. Before Cesar Chavez hits Woodstock, there are a few side streets that veer off to the right clearly marked with DEAD END signs. This is where our trek begins…

We shuffled down a long flight of stairs. Juliet counted, “1, 2, 3, 5, 2, 7, 20,” the way two year olds tend to do, and eventually we made it to the bottom. The path was a little muddy because of the recent rain, and a little overgrown because that neck is seldom traversed…but not too bad. Juliet plunged through the leafy canopy keeping a healthy lead and a weary eye for spiders.

“I’m Spidergirl!”

We crossed a bit of pond, and crossed some small bridges. The path criss-crosses back and forth across the pond and zig-zags through trees and brush. Sometimes we followed a path that led to a a good sitting spot. Sometimes we followed a path that led to some ducks.

Rest Stop

We found a plum tree, but the fruit wasn’t quite ripe. Along most of the trail, the ground is covered with a plant that grows delicious looking red berries. I told Juliet that we shouldn’t eat any unless we can be sure they aren’t poisonous. As luck would have it, we passed a group of students clearing a section of the trail. I asked what’s the deal with the berries and was told that they are a kind of wild strawberry, not poisonous but not good to eat. “Actually kinda gross.” So, that explains why there are so many berries left on the bush…Nobody wants to eat them.

Juliet pooped out about the time we came to the first big bridge. I carried her up the embankment. She toddled across to the other side, but I had to carry her the entire way back, including the arduous climb up the huge staircase. I got pretty tired. Still we had a fun little tramp in the woods and had time for a quick nap before we picked up big sister from school. Pretty, pretty cool.

The sun decided to shine.

SE Duke

I walked until I saw this

a really messed up rat

 

I decided to run home.

Springwater Corridor

We set out from the Sellwood Riverfront Park Trailhead on bikes. My husband has been teaching our five year old how to ride like a pro and they were anxious to show off.

Being pretty flat and car free, we thought this might be a safe and fun ride for the whole family. Unfortunately, the day was blazingly beautiful and a Sunday. Nearly every person in Portland had the same wonderful idea, so the bike path was ridiculously dangerous. Racers whizzed by us. Walkers passively dawdled and chattered. Large families of multi-chambered strollers totally clogged up the path. Still, the worst diversion was Oaks Park. Riding behind my daughter at a turtle’s pace, I became completely frazzled as I watched her eyes wander over to the joyous screams that floated from roller-coaster rides, carnival games and a giant ferris wheel. Every 2 seconds, I was screaming, “KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE ROAD!” or “LOOK WHERE YOU ARE GOING!” Sometimes, this last plea was scoffed at by others flying by because they assumed I was yelling at them, but I wasn’t.

Completely fed up with my nagging, she started turning her head towards me, looking behind her as she pedaled in the lead, to tell me off with a huff. She was the ultimate nightmare of a leader. Squinting, I spotted a yellow sign in the distance and told her we could stop when we reached that spot and nibble our picnic. Thinking this sounded like a reasonable plan, we managed to bike a bit faster and quickly found ourselves at the same railroad crossing we often arrive at from the Oaks Bottom Trailhead.

We decided to cross under the tracks and head in that direction.

Absolutely everything was flooded! We stopped at the small frog pond, where some naturalists had caught some tadpoles in a jar. Eventhough they swam in a clear glass jar directly in front of the kids’ faces, it still took awhile for them to recognize what they were looking at. After that, we spotted tadpoles in all different sizes swimming just about everywhere. A woman walking by guessed that a variety of frog species must be living in the swampy habitat.

We gobbled goldfish, checked out skeeters skittering across the water, and tried to count tadpoles.We noticed a strange water beetle that swim/rolls that I had never seen before, and abruptly decided to continue the adventure on foot.

We locked up the bikes and poked deeper into the woods. At times, a few hikers would surprise us along the trail, but it was considerably less crowded than the paved bike path. Suddenly we heard a loud SMACK!

A beaver slapped his tail against the water and swam into the pond. He slowly paddled toward a small dam and disappeared. In the summer, this entire area is grass. All the water will disappear and we wondered what the beaver will do then.

I searched for mushrooms, but I din’t see any. The girls poked all the tree stumps with sticks, but they found no foxes. Actually seeing a beaver was a real thrill. We went on the beaver hike at Tryon Creek a few months ago and the girls were really into it. We went to the zoo and spent a long time watching the beavers…but accidentally catching sight of one in the wild is just a little more exciting.

Since the girls were getting tired and we had a long ride back, we headed out. While chasing a duck, Sophia fell and scraped up her leg, so the ride back was filled with anguished howls. Sam had to push her for a the last 1/2 mile, while he somehow managed to stay on his own bike with Juliet riding co-pilot. Admirable. I couldn’t hack it and jetted up ahead.

Hunting for the Easter Bunny

After an eggceptionally exciting Easter Egg hunt, we decided to pick up the pooch and head for Forest Park. Actually, we went to the Arboretum because it’s hard to get lost and the girls like to visit the spot Mommy and Daddy got married. (It’s still there.)

As usual, I totally over thought my outfit and dressed for alpine slopes, instead of a fun romp through dappled sunlight.

I was sweating quite a bit, but I reasoned that might be okay. I am trying to lose some weight.  As soon as I drank some water it came right back, but for the briefest of moments, I was a few droplets skinnier. Woo-hoo! (Just to clarify my thought process: During the morning egg hunt I wore a raincoat and froze my butt off. Being on a mountain, at a higher altitude, I thought the temperature would naturally be cooler than down below. However, I didn’t take into account the body heat generated by hiking or that as the day wears on it continues to warm. Probably just adding a hoodie under my raincoat would have kept me comfortably numb. Oh well, next time.)

Once upon a forest path a brown bunny hopped across our path. My husband told the girls they might get to see the bunny again. With this timely reminder, they raced down the trail in hot pursuit.

Hippity-Hop-Hop! Since bunnies don’t usually run toward loud sounds, two screaming girls didn’t have much luck finding one. Sophia totally blew her top, “Where is he???!!!! You said we would see the Easter Bunny!!!” Immediately, my maternal instincts told me to diffuse the situation with a lie. “The Easter Bunny needs to get ready for Easter. She’s filling up baskets and stretching her quads, cause she has a lot of hopping to do if she wants to deliver all those baskets by morning.” And, this seemed to work. Sophia shifted gears, picked up a stick and declared it a magic wand.

While the girls practiced owl hoots, and scouted for fairies, Sam kept a sharp watch for that wily rabbit. Distracted by some stacked rocks, Sophia sat down to try her luck. Technically these little rock stacks are called cairns. Hikers and travelers use them to mark a route, to serve as guides for others along the same path. Though there were already several cairns of varying heights, Sophia could only manage a stack a few pebbles high before it toppled over in disgrace. She huffed and puffed and Juliet yipped, “Oh yeah!” which always sounds like Kenny Powers’ sidekick, Steven, if you know how that sounds. When (suddenly) Sam spotted the bunny!

I know how this must sound, but it is entirely true. I took three pictures, but armed only with my iPod, I couldn’t get close enough to take a clear shot. Over a dirty little gully with cinder blocks tossed in it, the bunny kind of hunkered down beneath a fern. Nestled amongst the greenery, he munched on a frond while he happily watched us without any apparent concern for his safety. Due to his brown fur, the critter blended right in, and UGH! The pictures just didn’t come out. Sophia and Juliet couldn’t even see him for at least 5 minutes, despite my frantic pointing and futile attempts at perspective. Finally they did, but were less enthusiastic than I’d imagine. Instead of oohing and awing, Sophia grabbed a pronged branch and pretended to be half a Bambi, which I agree was a pretty funny gag. Next Tico saw the rabbit and lunged. Only then did the bunny realize that a huge dog was with us. It promptly high-tailed it outta there!

So we spent the rest of the walk searching for the perfect climbing tree…

A Long Walk on Short Sands

This movie is a little dated, but it does include some walking, and I made it!