A New Place

Bill and I visited Jackson Bottoms Wetlands Preserve in Hillsboro, OR, which is about 11 miles west of Portland and then another 6 miles south from the Freeway to the other side of Hillsboro. It was a beautiful summer like day today in the Great Pacific Northwest with temperatures topping out at 75 F today (23.8888 etc in C.)

There were quite a few swallows swooping around, but this one and a companion stayed still long enough for me to get a few shots of them. Please visit my photos on Flickr to see the scenery and a few critters, plus a few shots from inside the Visitor's Center which includes a huge eagle's nest. There were not many ducks in the ponds, but when we got there the geese decided to swirl overhead in great honking hordes of flapping wings, which was fun to see. And we saw about 5 or 6 eagles waaaaay up in the sky soaring in lazy circles, but too far for me to get much of a shot. Then later, the geese decided to re-locate and they put on another show. I have a few photos of them, but they don't show up all that well. The light was not awful, but it wasn't the best. It was mid day with a hazy sky which washed everything out. We walked around one of the ponds, which was quite a bit of walking for me since I've been a lazy git this winter and I can tell I need to get back into some movement, or else I won't be able to move at all! Yikes.

Also, on the Flickr page, you can see a couple of farm land/orchard images and aslo pictures of Portland. The traffic was getting heavy and slow (hmm, a lot like me LOL) and I was able to get some pictures from the car of NW Portland from the I-405 Freeway. Some of photos are of old warehouses turned into Lofts, which are many in the Pearl District of Portland. And there are some of the skyline and Mt. Hood. I thought most of them came out pretty nice...considering. You'll see part of a colorful house (through the trees) on the side of the hill by the freeway and that house was featured on the House and Garden TV network some years back showing it being built over the course of many weeks. It is an ultra modern place built on a very narrow lot. There was a nifty large mural on a wall, but the trees were in the way. And I got a nice shot of Mt. Hood from the I-5 bridge and we followed an old 1940 Ford for a bit, so I snapped some shots of it.

So, that's it from the PNW today. Wow, what a totally wonderful warm day.

See ya!