Curry Shack Adventure #1

Sunday saw the the start of the cunning Curry Shack nights, promising at least one good meal a month to PDX Metro goers.
The weather may have kept folks away from the planned appetite inducing kick around, but Amber and Carla made it and we had fun under gray skies out on the fields.


After bagging all that running around and kicking the ball we walked to the house and threw open the garage door and began the festivities. I started with a completely successful Chicken Korma, and Carla whipped up veggies and mushrooms.

All in all we would have two rice dishes, one non-curry veggie dish, and three curries; two Indian and one Tai.

Candles gave the Curry Shack a warm glow.

Carla and I disagreed on my green curry. I found it to be a failure due to it's heavy, dull taste. Everyone else maintained it was fine. Enjoyable even. I think though that they were just being nice though I did notice though that no one actually died after eating it.

Sasha enjoying dinner in the Curry Shack.

We cooked over a gas grill which proved to be tops!

Jeff and Orna sprung an odd song and dance routine on us.

Carla with green curry...

and Susan with dinner.

My last dish was a rich and successful Indian curry with chicken and veggies...

which Jeff approved of.


The plan is that come spring this wall will be completely full of oil stained, smudged, and almost burned up recipes.

Oaks Park Picnic Adventure

We had a lovely adventure last Sunday spending the day along the river and down at Oaks amusement park.

After meeting at OMSI we walked the Springwater trail south the three and a half miles to the old amusement park.


After passing the concrete factory the trail passes into Oaks nature preserve. The Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge is a 160-acre wetland in south east Portland along the Willamette River. Part of the park is built on a sanitation landfill consisting of 400,000 cubic feet of construction waste material layered with soil. yikes!



Oaks Amusement Park, which was known as the Coney Island of the Northwest, opened May 30, 1905. It's one of the 10 oldest amusement parks in the country. Admission is free and we were on for a picnic lunch.

Not only were we on for lunch, but the entire state of Iowa was having a holiday too.

We even had a Nessie sighting in the parking lot.


Sad really, how the mighty have fallen.

We found the door to the old dance hall was open and snuck in for a look 'round.

The wooden carousel horses seemed old but there wasn't any information on them. They stood silently in mid-leap in the corners. The walls of the dance hall were covered with historical photos of the park but there wasn't any information about them eather. I took pictures of the framed prints in hopes of sussing out the history later.


These cool old street lamps date from the Lewis and Clark expo in 1905.


Check out the beautiful detail of the wooden dance floor.

The view from the front door across the dance hall. I'm sure that the original ceiling still exists above the crappy hanging one.

Claire and Dan after lunch on the banks above the river. Dan is an amusement park historian and a great guy. He took us 'round pointing out some of the history of the place.

It was sad that way in the corner behind the toilets and plastic sink...

...were some of the old bumper cars and train engines. They were beautiful but in need of some care and love.


This is the old original entrance on the south end of the park.


Orna had herself a snowcone sort of thing, and we stood in line to ride the Lewis and Clark Trail.





The roller skate rink at oaks is pretty cool. It smells a bit like 100 years worth of feet, and is as popular as ever.

This lovely old contraption hasn't changed a bit since the 50's.

The rink is home to one of the biggest and oldest Wurlitzer organs in the country and on Sunday's you can watch this excellent fellow play the afternoon away.


Clown noses curtsey of the good folks from the State of Iowa picnic.

Rocky Butte

The Rocky Butte picnic adventure.

"Its slopes are rough and broken. A grove of quaking aspen, not ordinarily native to the lower altitudes of western Oregon, grows on the northern side. From Rocky Butte there is a view of the city stretching to the hills beyond the Willamette and northwestward to the lowlands of the Columbia River. Beyond the Columbia are the peaks of St. Helens, Rainier, and Adams. Eastward the Columbia is lost between encroaching foothills of the Cascades, while slightly to the southeast rises Mount Hood..." (1940)


The first outing of the PDX Metro Adventure club was met by sunny skies and lovely weather. After meeting at 3 Friends cafe we made for the buses that run east out Sandy and for our walk up Rocky Butte.

Jeff tried his hand at stretching before the six hundred foot walk to the top.

In 1901, Joseph Wood Hill established Hill Military Academy in northwest Portland and soon moved it to the Rocky Butte area. In 1935, land on Rocky Butte was donated to the public. The following year, Joseph Wood Hill Park was completed and officially dedicated at a ceremony which paid tribute to the WPA workers who built it.

Some of the sadly overgrown and unnoticed stoneworks that line the road to the top.


At the top the WPA workers built a mad stone wall around the park in the 30's. The aircraft light tower dates from 1940. Rocky Butte it's self is a volcanic cone and part of the Boring Lava Field. Once known as "Wiberg Butte", today it is called "Rocky Butte" after the quarry on it's east side. Rock from that quarry was used for the Penitentiary at Walla Walla, the Portland Hotel, and the Old Steel Bridge in Portland, and as a source rock for the culverts of the Union Pacific Railway. The slightly-over-600-feet-high butte is about 1.3 million years old.

Rocky Butte is one of the over 50 vents and cones of the old lava Fields which surround Portland. The field it's self is 1 to 2 million years old. As Lewis and Clark paddled down the Columbia River on the west side of the Columbia River Gorge, they passed many cones of the Boring Lava Field, including the big volcano of Larch Mountain and the smaller cone of Rocky Butte.

From the top we looked out towards downtown Portland and the west hills. Mt. Hood peeked out from behind hazy clouds to the south east. Sadly Mt. Saint Hellens remained hidden.


The art of the picnic wasn't lost on Susan and Jeff.

Jeff passionately explains the rules of a game he is just making up on the spot that involves hopping from stone to stone back up the hill. The intricate rules were lost on me...

...but he had a grand time with it and I believe he took first place.

Things took a turn for the dodgy as we walked from the base of Rocky Butte to the Grotto (sorry, that's The National Sanctuary of Our Sorrowful Mother - also known as The Grotto) about a mile away.

The Grotto is a 62 acre Catholic Shrine and botanical garden that was established by the Servite Friars in 1924 and it's..well...a little odd in there.


After the bus back down sandy and a good trodding through the Hollywood district the sign at the Moon and Sixpence was a welcome sight!