WILDFLOWER WALKS IN THE LOCAL WILDERNESS

Wildflower walks after a wet spring?

Don’t go too early.

I found this flower and not much else.

What I did find was even better.

Since I missed the cherry blossoms in downtown Portland, I’m making sure to not miss the wildflower walks in beauty that come and go so fast.

I checked for something close to me, a beautiful spring meadow full of rainbow flowers.

Okay, I was on a ‘happy wife’ mission. She loves flowers more than anything.

She loves tulips on the piano, the organ, or the countertop for the way they fade.

Their beauty droops slowly, then drops, leaving old stalks in brown water staining one of our crystal vases, (our only crystal vase.)

Does she love flowers more than me? I think she might, which is one reason I jump on the flower bandwagon.

Wildflower Walks In West Linn?

“This trail will be overflowing with wildflowers,” according to another couple searching for wildflower walks.

Me: You’ve been here before?

Lady: We’ve been here for the last forty-five years.

This nice couple had their own dates. Married sixty-five years, the two octogenarians navigated the uneven terrain with caution. And for good reason.

The man had had both knees replaced and was breaking in a new hip four months old.

There he was, getting his work in.

We compared hip notes.

Me: I got the doctor that other doctors go to for hip replacement.

Man: A nurse held six business cards out and told me to pick one. I asked who could get me in soonest, and she handed me a card.

Me: How did it go?

Man: Awful. I needed surgery after the surgery. Maybe that’s why she was available first.

But there he was out in nature and rocking it.

About The Rocks

This place looks more Central Oregon than valley, which is a nice change.

It also documents some of the erratics dropped during the floods after the last Ice Age.

What’s the little sign say?

Tell me if this sounds odd:

I didn’t find anything too colorful in these delicate wildflower walks, but I did find ancient stone and people who seemed carved from then same stuff.

Call it a respite from real life.

Me: You two are more amazing than a field of wildflowers.

Lady: You’ll like it more when you come back and they’re in bloom.

I write a baby boomer blog read for the most part by millennials. Boomerpdx is a constant on a daily basis.

My posts come from organic sources, and in this case is organic and free roaming.

People I meet inspire posts. It’s like life when you start out with plans for one thing and it turns into another.

In addition to anything else it might be, boomerpdx has a sense of permanence over the last decade, like a hunk of Yakima basalt, like a couple of strangers bonded by love.

Yep, that’s what’s going on here.

That and wildflower walks.

Named for the common camas (Camassia quamash) which profusely blooms here in April and early May, this preserve hosts more than 300 plant species.

The preserve’s rocky plateau provides a glimpse into ancient history—when the Bretz Floods poured down the Columbia River Gorge and into the Willamette Valley 12,000 to 19,000 years ago. The floods swept soil and vegetation from parts of the valley and deposited granitic boulders (called “glacial erratics”) from as far away as Canada. One of the larger glacial erratics found at the preserve is on display at the main signboard.