Fourth of July happenings

Wow, what a fourth! We decided to sit around and relax in the morning, and I got some planning done for going to Nashville. I came across this funky little tour of Nashville--looks like a hoot! My dear husband isn't so sure about it, so I may just reserve two spots and see who wants to go with me. :-)

In the afternoon we went hiking in Forest Park--a humongous park that's right in Portland city limits, but looks like it's way out in the woods. It was beautiful yesterday. We saw lots of interesting plants, with flowers and berries, and wildlife--well, big old slugs and millipedes. But somehow we got messed up on the trail. The book we have had the map drawn in a confusing way--at first I thought it must have been mirror-image--and we should have started out by going left instead of right on the trail. So, we ended up back at the main road, thankfully, but way off from where we'd thought we were. So it was decided that we'd just walk on the road back to where our car was. Two problems with that: the road has no sidewalk and not much shoulder, so street-phobic Zachary was freaking out from the time we started, even though not many cars drive that road and most that do drive slowly. Second, I suppose that they don't expect people to be walking on the road....and they don't clear the stinging nettle from the roadside. We found that out the hard way when Zac brushed his hand on some. Then we had a boy freaking out because of walking on the road, plus his hand was hurting like crazy. Finally Paul had to tell him in no uncertain terms that he HAD to stop screaming, that he was being more of a danger to himself in that condition, that if it hurt he could say OW but not scream or yell. That seemed to do the trick, and we got back to the car safely where we had some medicinal cupcakes, cookies, and vegan pie for Hibi waiting for us. :-) Zac said he had fun in spite of the stinging nettle.

We'd talked about where to see fireworks. I suggested that we go to the blues festival, where they were shooting fireworks from, but Paul didn't seem too keen on that. So I suggested that we just go to the river anywhere to watch. Paul was remembering time after time of being in the midst of so many people, and having to sit in traffic getting back. Last year we went to Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco to see the fireworks, which was great up until it was over. Then there was a mad dash of hundreds, thousands of people trying to get on the buses to get away from Fisherman's Wharf. It got a little out of hand with people pushing and yelling and getting angry. I certainly didn't ever want to do that again either. So it was decided that we'd just walk down to Grant Park and sit on the lawn. Paul was sure that we'd have a good view. I was unsure of that, and it turned out that we were both partially right. The waterfront park fireworks were mostly behind the trees for us. But there were so many other fireworks going off, we had a panoramic view of lots of fireworks.

None of us could believe the number of private fireworks going off. Back in San Francisco, where it's illegal to sell any fireworks, you'd maybe hear one go off every 5 or 10 minutes. Here, as soon as the sun started setting, it was constant. Never did a second go by that I did not hear a firework. Most of it isn't legal to sell in Oregon, either, but Vancouver Washington is just a 10 minute drive across the border. Even in Fresno county, in California where I grew up and fireworks are legal, it was nothing like this.

So, we had a good fourth, despite lots of things! How was yours?