This is another one of those places I've been meaning to visit but just had never made it to yet. So I finally chose a nice day and made my way out to the Petersen Rock Garden. So join along as I tour the grounds. 🚶
Rasmus Petersen began building his rock garden in 1935. From the parking area you can start to see some of his designs that sit on the 4 acre property. The building in the back right was once a cafe and by the 1950's there were over 100,000 visitors per year.
By 1974 250,000 people visited the Gardens. As it is today, there was no admission but donations were always encouraged.
A large piece of obsidian, quite prevalent in our area.
The gardens have gradually fallen into a bit of disrepair over the years, but in 2022 a new era of restoration was begun.
An antique logging wheel used to remove logs from the forest during the heyday of logging in the area.
The entrance to the museum building.
The courtyard outside the museum entrance.
Unfortunately the museum building was closed to the public this day. Just gives me another reason to return! 😃
A couple more of the many unique rocks found at the gardens. It is said that all the rocks came from an 85 mile radius around the farm.
Another giant mansion located on the grounds.
Very wise words... especially for this oldmans!😁
A few more of the non standard type rocks. I really needed a geologist with me to help identify some of these. 😉
Two of the many peacocks roaming the grounds. While their beautiful tail feathers were gone for the season. The birds still had some amazing color.
Right after I took this picture of these fish one of the caretakers came up and was amazed to see them there. I guess a heron had been feasting on them and the caretaker thought they had removed them all from the pond. I guess the little fishes had some hiding places. 🙂 Caretaker went on his way to rescue more fish.
Did I mention there were many peacock on the grounds? 😜
That's it for now, hope you enjoyed the tour.
Please feel free to make comments or ask me any questions about this post.
Photos taken by me, @oldmans, with a Nikon D3300 and some Lightroom post processing.
Please visit Pinmapple to see the locations of some of my other posts.
Thanks for looking and enjoy your day!
That's a really interesting garden, and so much effort has gone into building the structures. How is it still run by the Petrsen family nowadays or has some charity taken over?
I think I read the granddaughter still owns it but some others have gotten involved to help restore it. It is on the National Register of Historic Places and Oregon’s Most Endangered Places so hopefully that should help with restoration. I did overhear some people talking about getting a well drilled and renovating the old farmhouse so I think the project is well on its way. 🙂
Beautiful constructions, I can imagine the hard work and time it must have taken to build them, I love the peacocks, they look exotic and magical to me.
Yeah, I would like to go back when the peacocks have there full plumage and see if I could get a shot of them presenting. 😀
Another interesting walk.. Did you like the stone bridges, @oldmans? 😊? Got a photo to share?
Hehe, The years go by, as quickly as you wink..
Stone bridges were cool! I wish the moat area would have been full of water instead of mud but I'm sure that is all part of the restoration effort.
The years do speed by and time seems to go a little faster each day. ;)
Thanks for stopping by! 👍
Congratulations, your post has been added to Pinmapple! 🎉🥳🍍
Did you know you have your own profile map?
And every post has their own map too!
Want to have your post on the map too?
Hiya, @livinguktaiwan here, just swinging by to let you know that this post made it into our Top 3 in Travel Digest #2049.
Your post has been manually curated by the @pinmapple team. If you like what we're doing, please drop by to check out all the rest of today's great posts and consider supporting other authors like yourself and us so we can keep the project going!
Become part of our travel community:
Very amazing place, when will you make the trip..? I recommend the Indonesian Borobudur temple to you.