The Saturday Round-Up

This is a long overdue picture-fest from last Saturday {a week ago}. We were lured downtown by the Rose Festival and ended up staying all day.

The Rose Festival is a BIG deal in Portland - not surprising since our nickname is the "City of Roses" {I guess that sounds better than the "City of Constant Cloud Cover," which would be a more accurate title}. Unfortunately our temperatures have been a bit cooler than usual so the roses haven't started blooming yet, not in full force at least. Oh well. It didn't damper the festivities.

So, first thing Saturday, Mark and I headed downtown to catch the Rose Parade. This was his best shot. Me with the rear end of a horse. Nice.

But let's face it, parades are boring. Especially if they go on for hours, like this one did. So to stop my whining, Mark took me several blocks over to the downtown farmers market.

and it is apparently asparagus and strawberry {finally!} season...

The blackberries really aren't worth eating until later in the summer. But the strawberries...oh sweet yummy. Those things were gone before we left the farmers market.

Purple brussel rapini anyone?

After the farmer's market, we started walking back toward the center of downtown where we saw this:

I could have looked at this map all day {I am a cartographer after all}...so we spent some time trying to figure out which countries were which, all while talking about how we'd plant something similar in our garden someday.

Then we continued on toward the waterfront to see the floats from the Parade, which were on display for the public It was right about this time that approximately 50 men rode past on bicycles - butt naked {Or is it buck naked? Either way, there wasn't a stitch of clothing on these guys} Oh Portland...you're weird.

Then we carried on, taking a peak at the Navy ships. It was "Fleet Week" here so the Navy was in town...

And last stop was the International Rose Test Garden, a large rose garden where we decided to pay homage to the flower that was responsible for bringing us downtown in the first place. There weren't many in bloom, but a few...