Spring Days in Portland

Portland, Oregon might be known as the City of Roses, but you know it’s Spring when the cherry blossoms burst forth along Waterfront Park, brightening the gloomy, gray skies in the Pacific Northwest.

After meandering through The Portland Saturday Market, we continued walking north, past a dazzling display of these beautiful flowering trees. I wish we had been able to stay a little longer for the Cherry Blossom Festival, sponsored by the Japan-America Society of Oregon. What a wonderful tradition to celebrate the fleeting beauty of the blossoms with a picnic and musical entertainment, as they do in Japan.

This year the festival is a poignant reminder of the country’s recent tragedy and organizers focused on collecting donations for victims of the Japanese tsunami through the Oregon Japan Relief Fund at Mercy Corps.

Here are a few other signs of Spring that caught my eye on our walk through the city.

Let’s not forget the daffodils.

“More than anything, I must have flowers, always, always.”
– Claude Monet

I’m with you, Monet!