Sunday: Washington Park; and the Game

1. Washington Park

Portland is surrounded by greenery, and they legislate the preservation of such. This drives up the prices something fierce, and the "Green Belt" becomes a patchwork of parks around the city, squeezing the working class people who have a hard time affording the high prices south, to peripheral cities like Beaverton.

In any case, one of the parks, Washington Park, is one of the main ones, seeing as how it houses the Rose Test Garden. This is one of the oldest of the city's rose gardens. All the rows of rose bushes are labeled, but, alas, none are budding:

Later on we hiked up into the hills behind the park, getting lost in the nature. Tony and Mike joined us, and we talked about various things like movies and the Cabin. Here's a view from the hike:

One thing that I thought was amazing was one of the vista points. From one spot we could see two of the volcanoes that menace the cities up here in the Pacific Northwest. Look at this picture, maybe after making it large:

If you can see, there will be one bright mountain in the front, and one darker one behind, further away from the viewer. The closer mountain is Mt. St. Helens, which famously her stack in 1980. Behind, in the far distance, is Mt. Ranier, the volcano that menaces Seattle.

Mt. Ranier is visible to both Seattle and Portland! I never knew that, and I'm not sure why it surprises me so much.

There's also a cool grassy amphitheater on the Washington Park grounds:

2. The Basketball Game

When Corrie was in the planning phase of this adventure, I thought it would be cool to see a basketball game. The Blazers are the one main team in the city, besides the Timbers in the MLS of course, and any city with one major team (one of the four major US sports (MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL)) tend to be maniacal for that team. 

When it turned out that the one game that would be happening during our trip would be against the Golden State Warriors, I got really excited. The Trailblazers are a very good team and headed for the playoffs, starting very soon. The Warriors are also a very good team, and they happen to star one of the top five best players in the game in Stephen Curry. The Warriors, with their regional name, actually play in Oakland. This was going to be a very good, playoff atmosphere-type game, and we were going to be there.

It turned out to be the best NBA game I ever attended.

And I have a new favorite NBA player in Steph Curry. I went from none to one, so, there's that.

While technically the name of the basketball arena is the Moda Center, everybody, and most maps as well, still refer to it as the Rose Garden. It sure looks new

The fans arrived in droves and were knowledgeable in everything from the team's history and lore, to the intricacies of how fouls should be called, to even the fringe players of their beloved team.

The Blazers opened up with a physical first quarter lead behind all-star forward Lamarcus Aldrige. The second quarter saw Steph Curry decide to take over the game. Curry, a shooting guard who's not the tallest or burliest of players, has an ability to seemingly make any shot he feels like making.

When he's resting, the Warriors seem to make a shot here and there, sometimes getting bogged down in their own plays.When Curry returns to the floor, and he's on, every shot from every spot seems to go in. "Who is this guy!" I kept saying out-loud. I mean I know who Stephen Curry is (son of former NBA player Del Curry and star of Davidson U; carried Davidson all the way to the Final Four that year), but in person to see the spectacle before your eyes is something else.

He single handedly led the Dubs, as the Warriors are affectionately known, to an eight point halftime lead. There were some questionable calls, and the fans let the refs know about them, but there was that thirteen point shift from the first quarter to half-time.

In the second half, for a while it was like it was the Blazers versus Stephen Curry and four guys wearing blue tank-tops. I couldn't see the display with the individual scores as it was being blocked by a banner of a retired player, but at one point late in the fourth quarter I remember thinking that it seemed like Curry had made at least half of the Warrior's points.

When the score came into view, that feeling had been basically substantiated: he had scored 44 of their 96 points up to that point.

The following picture is right before an end-of-regulation flurry that saw the lead change twice, and then a three-pointer by a Warrior not named Curry to tie the score with 3.6 seconds left:

When the five-minute overtime period was finally finished, the titanic battle was done and the Blazers were victorious 119-117. Stephen Curry finished with a game-high 47 points and did not disappoint this observer.

Corrie and Tony and Audrey and Mike were along with us this evening at the Rose Center. Mike headed back to Seattle afterwards.

We finished the evening around town, seeing as how both Audrey and Tony were leaving the next morning, and we wanted to enjoy as much time together as we could.