Rainy May Hike

We woke up this morning to some pretty serious raindrops, which encouraged us to take it easy and not move too quickly…Sunday morning and all.  But by 11:00 it was clear that the weather wasn’t going to let up anytime soon, so we headed out to meet a friend for lunch in Beaverton, and after some pho noodle soup we were ready to explore Hoyt Arboretum, with our rain gear.  Now, despite living in Oregon we don’t really have great rain gear.  We have warm jackets, but only Stella has a dedicated rain jacket (a hand-me-down we were thrilled to receive) and the expensive snow boots we bought for her and Jaeden last October are more cozy and waterproof than their rather traction-less rain boots.  I don’t know why I don’t buy myself a nice rain slicker, since I don’t change sizes anymore and I would use it a lot.  So maybe I will.  Anyway I did get myself some nice waterproof snow boots a few months ago and they work great for walking and hiking in the rain.  So, week three, here we are breaking out the best of our rain gear.  I’d thought we were entering the late spring/summer months of gorgeous sunny Oregon hiking, but I was only wrong about the sun.  It was still gorgeous, of course.

Hoyt Arboretum is just up the hill from the zoo and the children’s museum, but we entered from the Sylvan exit and drove up Skyline Blvd, so Eric and I didn’t have any negotiating attempts from Jaeden and Stella to change our minds and go to either of those places instead of a hike in the steady rain.  In fact, the kids were really excited about going hiking, and the weather didn’t seem to be a factor to them at all.  Already these hikes are becoming part of a normal Sunday to them, and they seem to really enjoy them...Eric, too, by his smile in this picture!

We parked right at the Arboretum (plenty of parking on a Sunday…how nice!), geared up, and walked to the visitor’s center to check it out.  It was closed, but we found some nice free maps and decent bathrooms and started on our adventure.  Stella was thrilled to have her own map, the “Meet the Trees” map geared towards kids.  She spotted a bridge at the top of her map, so we decided to hike to the bridge on Route 1, the Evergreens. 

Stella proudly showing off her map

With this decision made, Eric and I had two enthusiastic little leaders.  We started at the Redwood trail and hiked to the bridge…a nameless bridge at this point, which could be christened “Shady Bridge” because it’s really well shaded.  

Then we headed back along the Creek trail, which followed a bubbling little creek.  The highlight of this trail was the “Root Tree” which looked like some kind of sculpture. 

All the trails in the arboretum wind through groups of trees from all over the world.  Just in the small area we hiked, we saw trees that originated in China, Africa, and Alaska. We saw larches, redwoods, both Port Orford and Western red cedars, noble firs, grand firs, yew, and sequoia, along with lots of Douglas firs, and since most of the trees were labeled, we could start to differentiate between them and recognize them. We felt the squishy bark of the sequoia, touched the soft leaves of thimbleberry and saw early green salmonberries starting to show after their magenta flower petals fell.  

And everything glistened with the rain, making the greens brighter, the browns richer, the mud wetter.  It made me realize that soon these close-by hikes are going to feel more urban when the weather is nice and everyone and their dog are out.  Don’t get me wrong, I really like seeing other people hiking, smiling and greeting as we pass, teaching the kids to get to one side of the trail to let others get by.  Just as long as hiking doesn’t feel like a line at Disneyland.  Today was perfect.  I was actually impressed with the number of people we saw—we were far from the only people around, and certainly not the only ones with young kids. Still, it makes me thankful for the rain and the peace it brings.

Thanks to Eric for the photography help today!