Friday, August 20, 2010

Oregon Trip Day 7: The Petersen Rock Garden

For day seven's second stop, which naturally came after the first, we went to the Petersen Rock Garden, which is a couple miles west of Highway 97, about 6 miles southwest of Redmond, Oregon.

The rock garden is a little difficult to find if you're trying to get there the way we did, which was by looking for a sign on Highway 97 south of Redmond, then turning right, and then following more signs at turns on the back roads west of the highway. I don't know if the garden would have been any easier to find following signs from Highway 26 west out of Redmond and then south: the signs are old, several (all?) are right at the turns instead of conveniently before the turns, and many (all?) have faded. My mom, who had been there many years prior, managed to tell us which way we would turn prior to each turn using some suddenly manifested sense of direction. Usually it's my dad who doesn't need a map. Here's the location of the garden on Google Maps.
The Petersen Rock Garden is an interesting combination of cool green shade,
...lily-covered ponds,
...rocks, mostly from Oregon,
...and a museum with, you guessed it, more rocks (and minerals) from Oregon and elsewhere,
...including one of the largest thunderegg collection I've ever seen, ...and peacocks.

Trip report to be continued...

3 comments:

Gaelyn said...

My kind of place. Love the stone house. Those look like Richardson's Rock Ranch thundereggs of which I've gathered a few. But never heard of the rock garden. Very cool out of the way place.

Nom DePlume said...

Thanks for more of my favorite places in Oregon and Nevada!

Silver Fox said...

Gaelyn, I think those area Richardson's Rock Ranch thundereggs (the name sounds familiar), but I didn't get a picture with a label.

Nom, stay tuned for more!