Kubota Gardens

Thursday, April 17, 2025

Mike and Kristine enjoyed running and walking on their hills (mountain) while Keith ate cake for breakfast (twice) and I just leisured. I grabbed pictures of their house for the potd as we drove away. It is beautiful on the outside as well.

Mike suggested going to a Chinese garden that they had never been to. It turned out to be a Japanese garden and it was beautiful.

We rang the bell with our knuckles as instructed to let the garden know we were there. I know it was happy to see us.

I was fascinated by a (Sitka?) spruce’s new growth. I had to study it for awhile and really appreciated having the time and opportunity.

There was a heron by a lake that we watched for a bit. He had a great neck – up, down, up, down.

I loved the Japanese maples.

There was a stone bridge symbolizing the difficulty of life that we did not find difficult to cross. The stone is 40 million years old. (Old)

There were also several red bridges like the ones in Mr. Kubota’s hometown in Japan.

The map wasn’t so great and we wandered around looking for a memorial stone, while seeing a bunch of the garden.

We kept seeing Kristine’s mountain (Mt. Rainier) on our way to the airport. I finally got a picture!

As we were taxi-ing I caught glimpses of the big mountain. I was excited to get a picture from the air. Unfortunately we turned 180° right before the runway. It was fun to look down over Seattle anyway, and just as we got to downtown we banked to the right and I couldn’t see it. We kept an eye across the aisle and Keith got the potd. Way to go, Keith!! I took a few of other mountains, because mountains are great.

Keith had a drink on the plane – I think he was celebrating his birthday 🎈

We watched Break Point, then I watched a documentary about Olympic National Park. Apparently we missed the marmots while we were there.

We landed at midnight and Alexander pleasantly picked us up. He is so nice about weirdly-timed airport trips.

It is so much better to travel east during waking hours instead of having to try to sleep on the plane. I want a daytime flight to the UK. I wonder who I should call about that.