Portland, Oregon, 9-22

We wanted to start our day with Voodoo donuts, but the wait was too long. 

So we went to Powell's City of Books for coffee and pastry.  This nondescript entrance to one of the biggest independent bookstores in the world fronts a 4-story building covering an entire city block and housing over 1 million new, used and rare titles.

Portland's City Center Target store.  Jim didn't go in.

Rain changed our plans to tour Portland's outdoor rose garden, so we went to the World Forestry Center and stumbled upon an exhibit of plant specimens collected during the last half of the 19th century by America's most famous and influential naturalist and conservationist, John Muir.  He also, at age 13, made clocks that kept accurate time and created a device that tossed him out of bed before dawn.

 

"I seek to spell out by close inspection things not well understood." - John Muir

 

"I cannot understand the nature of the curse, 'thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee'....Are not all plants beautiful?  or in some way useful?  Would not the world suffer by the banishment of a single weed?" - John Muir, 1866

 "...Only the fingers of God are sufficiently gentle and tender for the folding and unfolding of petaled bundles of flowers."  - John Muir, 1869

Muir kept detailed journals and drawings of his travels and studies.  His journal entry below depicts his first encounter with a palmetto.  Muir had longed to see the palmetto from whom, he said, he learned far grander things than from any human priest.

The rain apparently never stops in Portland, so we went to an Irish pub to eat, drink and people watch.