Beautiful Mount Hood And Other Oregon Gems

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​BEAUTIFUL MOUNT HOOD AND OTHER OREGON GEMS

...Continued from yesterday:
     My sister Romaine and I spent the next five days seeking out what  gems might be uncovered in this patch of Oregon. We discovered a number, but rising above all the natural and man-made delights was Mount Hood, which was in our view much of the time wherever we drove,

​...at times seeming to magically float above the landscape.

     On Thursday morning we spent some time in quaint downtown Sherwood,

...and tried a restaurant called Clancy's, where the ambiance was pleasant,

...and the food and service were very good.     

    After breakfast we drove to the nearby town of Tualatin to a vast plant nursery called The Garden Corner which was located in a forest.
     The Garden Corner was a wonderland in bloom where the plants were displayed by color and type.

    The Garden Corner claimed to have the world's largest hanging basket,

...which maybe it did, though we did find other things of interest, among them black petunias,

...this plant that resembled a giant jester's hat,

...and a Sasquatch yard statue.

     That evening we went to a local park,     

...where Romaine brought me as a guest to a workout group she had joined.

    The following morning we drove several miles through the countryside, 

​...to the town of Tigard,

...where we tried the breakfast at the Biscuits Cafe.

     There I ordered the most fabulous cinnamon roll, slathered in warm cream cheese frosting that was like pudding and the size of a dinner plate. Here's my left-overs after I ate - make that inhaled - half of it. 

      The following morning the sun came out and so we went for a stroll in downtown Sherwood (see previous post, "A Little Slice of Heaven in Sherwood, Oregon"), which was crowded with fellow strollers and Saturday morning brunchers.

     Romaine had discovered a downtown park, so we walked through the park as well.

     That evening we returned to downtown Sherwood with Romaine's friend Michael to try dinner at a bar called Uncorked,

    In truth the food looked better than it tasted - a distinct lack of seasoning - and the service was not great. 

​However the ambience was quite lovely and enjoyable,

...and so we decided that mayhaps this restaurant hadn't quite gotten its land legs back after the COVID shut-down and so mayhaps deserved another go-round at some future date.
      On Sunday morning we drove to the neighboring town of Newberg,

...for brunch at the Black Bear Diner,

...a cozy place with a rustic decor,

...and great food.

      We then returned to The Garden Corner,

...where Romaine picked out a few more plants for her garden. ​

       The next day, Memorial Day, was the last day of my visit, and so it was my wish to return to Biscuits Cafe, where I had consumed that most memorable cinnamon roll.
       However, this time I had a hankering  to try the hot biscuits with strawberry jam that had caught my eye on our previous visit, so I ordered the eggs and hash browns with which the biscuits and jam came as a side.

     Were the biscuits and jam as yummy as I had fantasized they might be? Indeed they were. The eggs and hash brown were also very good.
       Romaine likewise declared her veggie scramble delicious.  

      After breakfast we drove about forty minutes to Salem to the Adelman Peony Gardens, where there were thousands of peonies of many varieties,

...as well as a few other kinds of late spring flowers in bloom.

     That afternoon Romaine and I decided to go to the movies. This would be the first time that either of us had been inside a movie theater since the beginning of the pandemic last year. We decided that for our for first foray back a 2:45 pm matinee on Memorial Day should be a fairly safe venture.

        This turned out to be the case, as the movie theater was practically empty.

     On the walls and floors were posted the same cautionary admonitions that one has become used to seeing in public places since the pandemic.

    Social distancing turned out to be easy enough since there were only two other people besides ourselves in our auditorium. We saw "A Quiet Place II." 
     Now, much as I liked "A Quiet Place" (see post 4/23/2018, "A Quiet Place," A Troubling Metaphor"), I thought the sequel was a drag, kind of  ho-hum but at the same time nerve-wracking due to all the "gotcha" moments.  My sister, on the other hand, really liked the flick. In fact, I think everybody else really liked this flick. It'll probably win an academy award.
      That night we watched on TV a Netflix movie called "Army of the Dead" in which Las Vegas is taken over by zombies,  

...and which I thought was considerably better than "A Quiet Place II."  
      Early the following morning I caught one final, glorious  glimpse of Mount Hood,

...then I was back at the Portland airport,

...and soon headed home.