Stopping for some absorption of nature vibes and caffeine before taking my mail-in ballot to the drive-up box at the post office. This disabled person and their cranky AF body appreciate the heck out of Oregon vote-by-mail, let me tell ya.
If I had smell-o-vision, I would also upload the delightful fragrance of newly mown grass, as the park rolls out its maintenance gear to keep up with the landscaping.
After propelling the reluctant CrankyBod out of the apartment at a much earlier hour than it has become accustomed to in order to do yet another medical thing, I am now rewarding myself with some more nature-viewing time.
Just before I snapped this photo, a whole bridal party emerged from the archway after evidently posing for pictures in the rain. It's a popular park for that, though I would have advised planning for rain for any outdoor stuff here in the Pacific Northwest.
Glad I had a grocery pickup to motivate me out of the apartment so I could enjoy the river's funky color today. I'm assuming the mud in the waters is lots o runoff from upstream.
Some more classic western Oregon liquid sunshine the past few days... never much more than drizzly showers but they add up enough to make the river full and feisty today.
I'd forgotten that my favorite accessible riverside hang is on the route of the local marathon event happening today. The marathon started at oh-dark-thirty so this checkpoint was receiving few runners by 1pm when I showed up, but I did see one determined person chug by before the volunteers started folding their tent and getting out of the rain.
Over in my local public rose garden, there's not a lot of roses yet but the vines are showing a lot of heart.💖🌺 (Peculiar white smudges on the images courtesy of my windshield.)
My phone camera is not quite doing justice to the river's color today. One of the side-benefits of taking multiple pictures of this location over time is being able to appreciate little variations like this. 🥰
Having a generally cranky-geezer day due to a combo of bad knees, stressful peopling moments, and the sudden weather gearshift back to Oregon damp, so it was time for another nature errand to get my head sorted. Such a relief to commune with the trees, which may make my eyes itch but never give me anxiety attacks over "okay now what the heck did they mean by that last DM??!?" 🤣
It's lovely, by the way, to live near the gloriously complex confluence of the Willamette and McKenzie Rivers. Having grown up in the very different Hudson River Valley, the nature geek in me is fascinated by these examples of rivers that have more room to wander.
I'm going to start calling these breaks I take at local parks nature errands, because they're really as needful for my wellbeing as grocery pickups and doctor's appointments.
LOL I have so many at-home things on my to-do list, but today somehow nothing seemed so important as getting out and wandering about. I'm wary of going too far afield with the way the van has been behaving recently, but I can still make a decent mini-jaunt out of local parks and such.