US Grant Park

Portland has been park planning ever since it commissioned a survey in 1905, the results of which found that parks are essential to the quality of urban life (duh). Currently Portland has the most green acres per capita of any city in the U.S. Whatever that means, all I know is, PDX has got itself an official buttload of parks. A very long time ago I made it a mission to visit one a week until I'd seen all of them. Then...um...I stopped. And now...um...I'm starting again. Whatever! I can be as damned capricious as suits me. I am subject to the whims of none save my own.

Today I trudged over to US Grant Park, located in NE Portland. The park's 19 acres were acquired in 1922. Its namesake visited our fair burg three times in his life, no mean feat in the days before widespread train travel, but its best-known feature is its Beverly Cleary sculpture garden, established in 1995 & featuring statues of Ramona Quimby, Henry Huggins & Ribsy, fictional characters who all lived in NE Portland & frequented Grant Park. Time has swallowed nearly all of my memories of the books, but I loved me some Ramona Quimby when I was a child. However! I must admit, I find the statue sort of...disturbing. Like one of those stoic eyeless busts commemorating Roman emperors, only she's a grinning lifeless kid.


Eh. The park itself is very nice indeed, & if I lived closer, I would probably go there more. Except it has an off-leash area, so it's probably just stuffed to the gills with dogs in nice weather. My bones are cold, as it freakin' hailed throughout my two-mile walk over, but it was worth it because the sun came out for the half hour I was at the park & sun + precipitation = sparkles. I got several lovely pictures of the tennis court too.