On Sunday I was feeling homesick for the Pacific Northwest, strangely.  Well, not so strangely, this happens when I am in California too.  British Columbia and Oregon are indelibly embossed on my psyche.

Anyway, I saw a picture of a big stone house that looks about as Pacific Northwest as it gets around here and suggested we visit the attached rose garden.  I had expected Matthew to jump on the alternate option of a Harley Davidson show in Yokohama an hour away by train, and when he said ok to the rose garden I knew he still wasn't feeling at all well.

My melancholy was duly appeased by some time spent in the woods, albeit woods where kimono-clad women and a giant pagoda detracted somewhat from the Oregonian ambiance.