Oregon Zoo and Rose Garden

It was our last day in Oregon and I was a little sad that our vacation was coming to an end. But we had one more day of fun ahead of us. After the horrible drive through Portland yesterday, we did not want to get back in the car, so the hotel shuttle took us to the Cascades metro stop. There were some issues with the fare machines, so a nice transit security officer told us to ride the train to the Gateway transit center and purchase our fares there. So we did that and after purchasing our fares, we chatted with him waiting for the next train to arrive. We mentioned we were heading to the zoo and he told us that they had a baby elephant on exhibit, so I was real excited about that. We followed the red line to Washington Park, which is right outside the zoo. We started off in the Great Northwest section, seeing mountain goats, black bears, cougars, bald eagles, and other critters native to the Pacific Northwest region.

Sandy was concerned on this trip that we might run into a bear.

Well, we didn’t see any bears on all our hiking adventures, but we did get to see quite a few at zoo.

And from here, we could get good close-up pictures without the risks of coming across a bear in the wild. Next, we went to the Pacific Shores area and saw the sea lions, otters, penguins, and polar bears.

With the cool weather, the polar bears were particularly active. One bear was playing with a big plastic barrel.

He was trying to bite it, but couldn’t get it because it was round. So he pushed on it with his front paws to make a wrinkle that he could bite and show that barrel who’s the boss. The tigers and leopards were sleeping and we couldn’t see them well, so we headed to the Lorikeet Landing exhibit.

I really enjoyed this exhibit. It’s an enclosed area where the birds are free to fly around, although they were spending most of their time eating cantaloupe and other melons.

I never realized how beautiful these birds are, with the most fantastic rainbow colors.

Then we headed to the Africa area, seeing monkeys, bats, flamingos, crocodiles, giraffes, and hippos.

We walked through the Vollum Aviary to see more beautiful exotic birds and then went through the Predators of the Serengeti exhibit.

Here we saw some lions, cheetahs, and cervals.

Then we headed to the Asian Elephants exhibit. This exhibit was under construction and they are building more habitat for the elephants. I was happy to hear this as it seemed like they didn’t have enough space.

But they did have the most adorable little baby elephant. He was frolicking about pestering the adults with the biggest grin on his face. We finished up by heading through the Fragile Forests exhibit, seeing the orangutans, chimpanzees, mandrills, and howler monkeys.

As we were leaving the zoo, it started to sprinkle a bit, but never really started to rain. We wanted to head over to the International Rose Test Garden and waited for the bus. After it didn’t come for a while, I checked the sign and apparently it doesn’t run on weekdays after Labor Day. So we made the mile or so hike through Washington Park to the garden.

What a beautiful garden!

With literally thousands of rose bushes in nearly every color of the rainbow, it was truly spectacular.

Even in the light drizzle, we spent a while walking up and down the rows, checking out all the beautiful roses.

When we finished, we headed back to the metro stop and boarded the red line train back towards the airport. A very nice lady was sitting across from us on the train and we had a nice time chatting with her on the ride back. We got off at the Cascade station and had dinner, before calling the hotel to shuttle us back. Tonight, Sandy and I both took advantage of the hot tub to relax before having to fly back home.