Darlingtonia californica
On Tuesday the 23rd, we left Vancouver fairly early after a nice breakfast at the Sylvia, and had little difficulty getting readmitted to this, our native land. We drove drove drove (actually Mark did almost all of it, as usual), and arrived at Theodore and Laramie Palmer’s house in Eugene around four in the afternoon. Dinner relied heavily on garden vegetables, and afterwards we sat around and talked. I hadn’t seen Theodore since running into him at a conference some time in the Seventies or Eighties, and I hadn’t seen Laramie since around the time of their wedding in the early Sixties.
|
|
Theodore is President of the Mount Pisgah Arboretum in Eugene, and one of the reasons that I wanted to visit the Palmers was to get a look at the Arboretum. It's a wonderful place, and well worth a visit. They took Mark and me around the grounds, and showed us improvements that have been made since the Arboretum’s founding in the Seventies, and loads of interesting ecological niches. In the upper picture at the left, Theodore points out something of interest to Mark (large image, small). In the right picture, taken soon after, Laramie walks ahead along the path (large image, small). In the lower picture at the left, you see the open grassland dotted with oaks that makes up much of the Arboretum’s area. (large image, small). |
After lunch at the Palmers’, they took us for a drive to the coast. Our first
stop was at an Oregon state park created to give access to a big patch of
Darlingtonia californica, a kind of pitcher plant.
But these are huge, around two feet tall. Left thumbnail:
large image, small;
right: large image, small.
|
So it was on to the coast, and the weather was sunny, making for good photography in some cases, but mostly I longed for the picturesque atmosphere that we had gotten so much of a few hundred miles to the north. The sunlight accented the bodies of the sea lions below very nicely, though: I don’t think they’d be nearly so noticeable in different light. From the heights where we looked down on the seals, we went down to the cove below the Heceta Head Lighthouse, which you see in the upper left picture. |
|
|
After walking on the beach a bit, we climbed up to the lighthouse, where we declined the opportunity
for a tour, but did take quite a few pictures.
The last picture was taken from the footings of the bridge that you see in the view that
looks out the cave past Mark.
Then we drove to a nice pretty and restored town called Florence, where we had dinner in a pleasantly funky restaurant, but with good food, and drove back through the mountains to Eugene. |
|
We left early the next day, driving straight down Interstate 5,
and got to San Leandro in time for dinner with Mary and Michael Lubin
at an Italian restaurant that we have been to and enjoyed at least once before.
Our last day was Thursday, the 25th, and we took US 101 into Los Angeles County to Pasadena. Home! |
|
Pictures from two days before.
Return to the main Northwest Trip page; to my home page.
