Fort Vancouver and Rose Gardens

Tuesday, June 16
Our first adventure today took place in Vancouver, Washington where we first visited the Visitor Center at the Pearson Airfield at Fort Vancouver.  It is the first airport in the Pacific Northwest and one of the oldest operating airports in the U.S. Starting in 1923 the airport played a key role in the development of US Air Power and aviation in the west.  A lot of activity took place here in the early life of airplanes beginning at the time of WWI.  Because of all the spruce trees in the area this became a huge production point for processing spruce trees and creating planes.  The base itself is no longer in use but is part of the National Park System.

On the table at the back of this picture is a miniature layout of the huge processing area for all of the wood including the tent houses the workers lived in

At the peak of production, 30,000 people in the woods and at the mills produced millions of board feet of wood to create 14,000 aircraft as well as send a good deal to Europe for war time use.

Fort Vancouver was built in the early-1800s by the British as one of the headquarters for the Hudson Bay Company - a giant fur trading company.  The influx of American settlers because of the rich farm lands resulted in division of the Oregon country at the 49th parallel so the Fort was then on American soil.  As fur trade diminished so did use of the fort and it fell into disrepair.  What exists today is all reproduction.  But the surrounding land became a major base for our military.

In front of the fort is an example of the huge gardens that once existed filled with vegetables, herbs and flowers for use by the residents of the fort.  When the fort was built there were over 8 acres of gardens including fruit trees.

Inside the fort were some of the important buildings such as the home of the "chief factor", the most senior officer.

I was amazed at the very vivid colored walls and variety of colors used.  Later I saw this sign that explained that more fully

The main room in the "counting house" - the accountant also reflected these bright colors

The fur warehouse had white walls to make it bright enough to deal with the all important furs

Even the kitchen with its huge bread ovens was painted white. 
But the carpenters just had rough wood walls

The doctor didn't rate much either

nor the patients.

Our bus driver then took us back to Portland for lunch giving us a short tour of the city on the way to Meriwethers - a long standing restaurant with a huge old wood beamed fireplace.

Following lunch we went to the gigantic Washington Park that includes the zoo, a holocaust memorial, a Japanese garden, an arboretum, the Pittock Mansion and the amazing International Rose Test Gardens.

From many different points on our drive around the metro area we could see Mt. Hood and  Mt. St. Helens although the haze made it a bit more of a challenge.  This shot was taken from the front yard of the Pittock Mansion which sits on a high hill overlooking the city.

The International Rose Test Garden has close to 600 varieties of roses and almost 7000 individual plants!!!!  It is Awesome!!

Here we are posing with Keith and Monica Oster under a beautiful arch filled with roses

The roses came in all sizes, colors and shapes some with a beautiful perfume and others with little

And some made an interesting bouquet basically on one stem

One area is dedicated to the rose queens for all of the year's they have been selected with roses created in the year and tiles with their names on them.  We couldn't resist taking this picture since our oldest daughter is a Beth. :-)  Of course, she wasn't even living in 1934.

While riding around in the city we couldn't help but notice all the beautiful flowers in hanging pots, in gardens and even along the edges of the expressways.

We returned in time for dinner followed by a game of pegs and jokers with Dave and Barb Seaberg.  Then after a quick trip to WalMart to get some food we needed, we all called it a night (well I'm going to now after finishing this blog)