Nature park 1

So we decided it would be a good idea to go to our local nature park thingy and walk around in the great wilderness that is downtown Beaverton.

We tried finding this place once before but ended up driving right past it. Not that we cared, we were more about adventuring at that point. But this time we looked it up on a map and went straight there.

The view from the parking lot.

So here we are at Tualatin Valley Nature Valley Habitat Park Beaverton Habitat. Looks nice. Not too many people milling about looking seedy or whatever. If you'll notice the little sign at the far right, right next to the flag pole... here, I'll blow it up for you...

Seems pretty straightforward, right?

 So yeah, needless to say not 5 minutes inside the park and we hear the sound of a small dog. The "family" were walking towards us on their way out of the park with the cutest little buddy ever. I almost took a picture of him for proof of people's idiocy, but I didn't. And then sure enough not 200 yards later we had to sidestep some doggie doo in the middle of the path. Not only did they not obey park regulations, but they littered with their pet too. Some people don't deserve to be a part of my species. I'm just sayin'.

I'm pretty sure that's a bigfoot right there.

 The park was awesome. Lots of trees and moss and yetii and crap. Considering its vicinity to major roadways and transit systems, it was shockingly serene. At times it seemed like we were miles from anyone and anything.

Thug GF snapping phone pics.

So many photo ops, but upon reflection all the pics of trees and crap kind of look the same. It's definitely one of those "you had to be there" kind of things. It was really pretty. Except for this thing...

Gore. And no, my shoe was not the cause of it.

Yeah, it's a half-eaten banana slug. Little did I know that GF has this fear of them. It's a pretty powerful fear. For the following 30 minutes after seeing this thing she kept asking me if I was sure if it was a slug, because its size suggested something far more diabolical. After a bit I had almost convinced her it was a tadpole for some monster-sized frog.

Then there was a pond like thing...

No, she's not ralphing. She's looking at something.

We got to see power lines in their natural habitat.

Indigenous commuter-train. So beautiful!

Then we came across this marshland bridge system which had these cool little factoid-plaques all over the place:

Seems vaguely apocalyptic for a nature park plaque.

There were more:

Why else would it unite its vertebrae to form a backbone?

And yes, I think I'm funny...

Apparently others before me were also against these things evolving unabated.

Okay. But just past this we saw the cutest thing ever:

Nature!

She was just chillin' about 30 yards off of the path. She sat there very patiently while GF and I snapped a buttload of pics.

But then, just as we were leaving I made the mistake of pointing something out...

Creature from beyond time. With no pockets.

I just casually said "hey look," to which I was regaled with screams and much arm flapping. My bad. And yet she got right up in its, well, I guess "face" is a poor choice of words, but whatever. She couldn't stop looking at it very intently while making a myriad of "icky" faces. It was cute. GF, not the hunk of slimy weirdness.

Caturbunkle.

This thing wasn't very big, maybe an inch and a half, but I'm sure it would just as soon kill us as give us the time of day. Nature is goofy that way.

So that's it. We went back the next day and went a different direction. I'll post pics of that soon. Mostly though, it's just more pics of trees. But maybe there's a surprise or two in store for y'all! Then again, maybe not. Whatever. Up yours.