This June Elaine and I visited the Oregon Garden, the 80-acre botanical garden in Silverton, Oregon. There are so many interesting plants from across the pacific northwest. I love all the sights, sounds, and smells there.

It’s always worth a visit to SE Portland’s Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden; this is especially true if you like rhododendrons, as they are omnipresent there.

16+ acres of lush forest and flowering plants from around the Northwest, and you will get a very different experience depending on what time of year you visit.

West of Astoria, Oregon, on the wide and well-preserved historic beaches along Fort Stevens State Park, a visitor may be surprised to find the remains of a shipwreck from 1906. The Peter Iredale, once a 300-foot-long wooden sailing ship with four tall masts, is now only the skeletal remains of its iron hull sticking out of the sand.

West of Astoria, Oregon, on the wide and well-preserved historic beaches along Fort Stevens State Park, a visitor may be surprised to find the remains of a shipwreck from 1906. The Peter Iredale, once a 300-foot-long wooden sailing ship with four tall masts, is now only the skeletal remains of its iron hull sticking out of the sand.

In northeast Portland, there is a nice viewpoint at Rocky Butte Natural Area. The park covers the remains of an extinct volcano and gives you — on clear days — a nice view of several more volcanoes, both extinct (e.g., Mount Tabor, Pilot Butte, etc.) and active (e.g., Mount Hood and Mount St. Helens).

This refuge, located just west of Ridgefield, Washington, is home to a wide variety of plants and animals.

There is not much more visually fun out there than a whole bunch of balloons firing up their burner engines and floating up into the clear blue Oregon skies!

Even though it was in the heat of summertime, we still saw many animals in this botanical garden, including a few very happy and loud frogs.

A quick visit to Westmoreland Park, a lovely community park in SE Portland, Oregon…