Road Trip 2015

[Torie]

Was the route through ND Muon2, to see more water features?  ND is the one state other than Alaska to which I have never been. It's not on the way to anywhere, and does not have a destination feature.

[Torie]

I saw Butchart Gardens on a family vacation when I was about 12 years old. I still think that it is the most magnificent presentation of landscaping I have seen anywhere in the world. What makes it so special is the topography. It's setting is in a former rock quarry, so there are grottoes and so forth with rock cliffs and ledges at various elevations which serve as a very effective vehicle to display the plants, and create visual variety and drama. Sometimes the rock elevations are all covered with greenery, sometimes not, but in either case, the elevation changes and little valleys of landscape presentations, are most pleasing to the eye. Due to my visit there, when I designed a pool in the desert, I inserted reddish brown flat rocks between the pool and the golf course, inserting in and amongst the rocks various plantings, with water flowing from a raised pool through various crevasses in the rocks.

[Torie]

Anything of particular interest emerge at the conference on the census and redistricting? Any mention of the pending SCOTUS case on whether just citizens should count?

[Torie]

Too bad you missed the rain forest on the Pacific coast. When it is sunny, that place is just an amazing array of green, with ferns everywhere on the ground. It seems like a place the Elves in Middle Earth would live. I visited there in conjunction with the Seattle world's fair, and still remember it like I had been there yesterday.

Nice quilt!