So, I went out today....

Ran a couple errands, and had some time left over. So I stopped at the Japanese Gardens (and a couple other places) with my camera to hand. Here's the first set of photos, from the Gardens.

     

This next one is the same set of stairs I use for one of my icons, though the icon was taken during a different season. I love these stairs, and I almost always walk the garden so I am going up them (I find them much more attractive from the bottom - from the top, they give a nice view, but they themselves aren't as attractive that way).



For a while, we had a sand and stone garden. It was decided this wasn't authentic enough, and changed to a different style of dry garden three, almost four years ago. For some reason, they became dissatisfied with that this year, and wanted to return it to the original look the first designer gave it, which they did. I'm glad. I liked it either way, but it's more dramatic and attractive in the original/present form. Seen from a place well above:



And finally, a shot not of but from the gardens: Mt. Hood and Portland, seen from the area in front of the pavillion.

And yet more photos, mixed bag!

And a few non-garden pictures from the past two days. First, last night's photo of my neighbor's Christmas display:



Then, a barn near where I work - and just across from some very new apartments. (I took the photo from the parking lot of an office building, so it's a very odd but rather cool contrast.)



Then, two shots of a construction site within a mile of where I work. I saw it when I was driving to/from class this week, and I really wanted a photo of it, but it came down to a matter of lunch vs. photos. I'm not sorry; photographs of folks working on a construction site could be neat, but aren't what I wanted, and Saturday's a lovely day to find a good parking space in the lot opposite anyway. :)