Our 33 Day, 6731 Mile Road Trip–part 6

We arrived at our son’s home the afternoon of our 6th day, April 27th and stayed until about noon of May 7th, our 16th day.  During this time we visited several interesting places within driving distance of Salem. Oregon.

One day we took a drive to see several historic covered bridges, taking along a picnic lunch.  The first two were in the town of Sweet Home, Oregon.  Both are pictured below.

This is the Weddle Bridge at Sweet Home, Oregon.  Although the bridge is no longer in use by vehicles one is able to walk across.  There is now a park at this location and it was here that we ate our picnic lunch.




This small bridge is just a few feet away from the Weddle Bridge pictured above.  It was built for pedestrian traffic but it is closed to all traffic now.  It is the Dahrenburg Bridge.





The Short Bridge, as it is called, is still in regular use, being used to span the South Santiam.  This bridge is about 12 miles east of Sweet Home, Oregon.






The Crawfordsville Bridge spans the Calapooya River and it also is closed to vehicular traffic.  It is located at the west end of Crawfordsville, Oregon beside Hwy. 228.





On another day we spent a few hours at the Willamette Heritage Center at the Mill in Salem, Oregon.  The following information is taken from their web site.

“A visit to the Willamette Heritage Center at The Mill is a stroll through the history of the Willamette Valley. The five-acre campus is home to fourteen historic structures that present the stories and richness of Oregon's past.

Pioneer buildings at the Willamette Heritage Center at The Mill take visitors back to the early settlement of western Oregon. The 1841 Jason Lee House, arguably the oldest standing wooden frame house in Oregon, pre-dates the first wagon trains crossing the Oregon Trail. These structures provide a glimpse into the lives of the missionaries and pioneering families when these early founders were putting down roots in the Valley.

The 1895 Thomas Kay Woolen Mill, one of the best-preserved Victorian-Age factories in the West and designated an American Treasure by the National Park Service, vividly tells the story of industrialization in the West.”

I especially enjoyed the tour through the mill.  Even though it has been closed since 1962 all of the machinery is still in place and the tour guide did a great job explaining the entire process of taking the wool fleece and turning it into woolen blanket material. 

This photo is of the Thomas Kay Woolen Mill.  The mill was in operation from 1889-1962.  The original mill burned in 1896 and was replaced with this brick building.  The entire mill was powered by water power, which turned a turbine.  A set of crown gears transferred the motion from the vertical turbine to a horizontal shaft that powered all of the machinery in the main mill.

One thing that Connie desired to do while in Oregon was go to the coast.  So, one day was spent driving to the coast, driving up the coast and driving back to Salem.  One of the first spots we visited was the historical Yaquina Bay Lighthouse.  It was only in operation for three years, 1871-1874.  The lighthouse lamps burned whale oil and could be seen for 12 miles.

The Yaquina Bay Lighthouse was the only lighthouse in Oregon that provided living quarters for the lighthouse keeper and his family.  A larger lighthouse with a light that could be seen for 22 miles was built only 3 miles away and forced the decommissioning of this one.



Just a short distance from the lighthouse, in the town of Newport,  we were able to view these California Sea Lions.  These are all males.  The females never leave the waters of California and the males return during the mating season, spending the rest of their time along the Oregon coast.


We stopped along the coast for our picnic lunch at a popular whale watching site.  We looked but never saw any whales.  Our son said that on previous trips he had seen a few.  Here is a picture of the Pacific along the Oregon coast.

To conclude the visit to Oregon’s coast we stopped at the famous Tillamook Cheese factory at Tillamook, Oregon.  They seem to be known for their ice cream as well and we all had to try one of their cones before heading back to Salem.

Read more...

Our 33 Day, 6731 Mile Road Trip–part 5

As I mentioned  near the end of part 4, when we left the Pilot Travel Center at Biggs, Oregon on Friday morning, April 27, our 6th day on the road, we drove across the bridge into Washington state.  The bridge, by the way, is called by several names.  The official name seems to be The Sam Hill Memorial bridge.  It is also known as the Biggs Rapids-Sam Hill Bridge.  Samuel Hill was a business man and entrepreneur, the bridge was his dream.  He had run a ferry at that location for several years, beginning in 1925.  It was one of many that ran at that location from 1868 until the opening of the new bridge.

Crossing back across the bridge into Oregon we got back on I-84.  A few miles further west we pulled into Memaloose Rest Stop.  In the middle of the Columbia River is Memaloose Island, or island of the dead.  When Lewis and Clark visited the area in 1805 they called it Sepulchar Island.  Here is a quote from their journal.  

"... passed three large rocks in The river the middle rock is large long and has Several Squar vaults on it. we call this rockey Island the Sepulchar ..." [Clark, October 29, 1805]   Below is a photo taken from the rest stop.



A few miles on West we came to the area of magnificent waterfalls, perhaps the one best known is Multnomah Falls.  We stopped to see it first before getting onto the old historic highway so that we could view several of the others.  Here are a few pictures.

This is Multnomah Falls.  The upper and lower falls together are 620 feet high.  The bridge you see in the photo is 45 feet long and is 105 feet above the lower falls.  We hiked up to the bridge and Connie walked across.  I preferred to stay on firm ground.  I did take her picture!  There is a trail that one can take to hike to the top of the falls but when we were there it was closed due to a landslide.







The falls pictured here is called Horsetail Falls.  It is named that apparently because it looks a lot like a horses tail!  It is 192 feet tall.














This is Bridal Veil Falls.  We had to hike about 2/3 of a mile roundtrip to visit this beautiful falls.  As can be seen, there are two “drops” to this falls and it is 118 feet total in height.













Here are two additional waterfalls that we visited, and we didn’t see them all by any means.  The one on the left is Wahkenna Falls and the one on the right is Laturell Falls.















Here is one more photo of the Columbia River taken from the Crown Point Overlook at Vista House.

Vista House was first proposed by Samuel Lancaster, an engineer for Multnomah County who supervised the Columbia River Highway Project.  Vista House was designed to be an observatory and a rest stop.  Construction began late 1916.  Here is a picture of Vista House.

It is hard to tell but that is Connie in front of Vista House.  Other than a brief stop for some lunch this was our last stop before arriving at our son’s home about 2:45 P.M.  In the next installment we’ll show you some of the places we visited during our visit.

Read more...

Our 33 Day, 6731 Mile Road Trip–part 4

Our fifth day on the road, April 26th, started out with rain.  We received a light shower or two during the night and woke up to a rather cool and damp morning. We got on the road a little later than normal, about 9:00 A.M. Mountain Daylight Time, primarily because we planned to make a stop about 75 miles on up the road and the place didn’t open until 9:00 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time (the time zone was just a few miles from us.)

Here is a photo Connie took as we traveled.  Some of her photos taken that morning showed a lot of rain drops on the windshield so this must have been during a slight let-up in the rain or she caught it just after the wiper blades had cleared the glass.

 
Our stopping point for the morning was the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center near Baker City, Oregon.  As their brochure says,  “The National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center at Flagstaff Hill brings to life aspects of the Oregon Trail experience through living history demonstrations, interpretive programs, exhibitions,  and special events.”  We came away, after our nearly 3 hours there, with a much greater appreciation for the hardships, endurance, etc. of the 300,000 plus immigrants that made the journey westward along the Oregon Trail.  And, those folks traveled much the same route we took, without the interstates and highways that are there now.  It is hard to imagine facing the mountains, rivers, etc. with nothing more than a wagon and a team of oxen.


This is a view of a full size representation of a wagon and people making the trip.  We learned that of the 300,000 plus that made the trip, nearly 30,000 died in route. 







Another representation.  It was interesting to look at the many exhibits showing the limited amount of space in the wagons and the amount of food, tools, and personal effects each family tried to take along.  Much had to be discarded along the way due to various factors.



We were amazed to learn that over 300 miles of wagon ruts from over 150 years ago still remain.  We were able to view some on the grounds of the Center.  The ruts were so deep and packed so hard that to this day they are free of weeds and other growth and erosion has not totally wiped them out.  You can make out the ruts in the photo below.




By the time we had traveled northward and reached the Columbia River and began going westward again the rain had come to a stop.  The view along the river was great.  I’ll post some photos of the river in the next installment. 

We stopped for the night at a Pilot Travel Center at Biggs, Oregon.  The parking lot overlooked the Columbia River.

  
This photo was taken from the corner of the Pilot lot.  The mountains in the picture are in the state of Washington.  Although we had been in the state of Washington before we just had to drive across this bridge the next morning before continuing westward, just to say we had been in that state on this trip.

In the next installment I’ll post some pictures of some gorgeous waterfalls.

Read more...

Our 33 Day, 6731 Mile Road Trip–part 3

I promised in part 2 that I would include some photos of the mountains we began to see as we got into Wyoming.  Here are a couple.

This was taken by Connie out of the windshield, somewhere in western Wyoming.









As we neared Cheyenne, WY we began to see snow on some of the mountains in the distance.









Day four of our trip, April 25th, we left the Wal-Mart lot in Rock Springs, WY and continued our westward journey.   Less than two hours later we were entering into the state of Utah. Within a few miles we left I-80 and got onto I-84, which we would follow all the way to Portland, Oregon.  Although we were unaware of it prior to coming upon a turn-out situated for viewing it we saw a quite unusual geological formation called The Devil’s Slide.  It consists of two parallel limestone strata that protrudes 40 feet out of the side of the mountain with a 25 foot wide channel between that runs down the mountainside for hundreds of feet.  Here is a photo Connie took.

 
By taking I-84 we did not go through Salt Lake City nor did we really get to see the great Salt Lake,  just a few spots where we got a brief glimpse of some inlets.  We did continue to see mountains.  Here is another photo taken in Utah.

We were obviously going down at this point, as you can see the road stretching out in front of us.









Our goal for our fourth day had been Mt. Home, Idaho but as we had been getting ahead of our goal the previous couple of days we did so quite easily this day as well.  This was another 500+ mile day and we crossed into Oregon and stopped for the night at a Pilot Travel Center in Ontario, OR.  It was here that we “bought” our first shower at a truck stop.  We found the shower rooms to be very nice and well maintained.

With the next installment we will begin to detail the many places we visited in the state of Oregon.

Read more...

Our 33 Day, 6731 Mile Road Trip-part 2

Our second day on the road, April 23, 2012, began about 8:00 A.M.  We continued West on I-70 to Kansas City, MO and then turned North on I-29.  We crossed into extreme Southwestern Iowa, travelling only about 10 miles, and turned back West on Rt. 2 which we followed all the way to Lincoln, Nebraska.  There we got onto I-80, which we would remain on for hundreds of miles, crossing all of Nebraska and Wyoming and into Utah (not all that day of course).  Our goal for the day was Lexington, Nebraska but we exceeded that by a few miles making it all the way to North Platte, Nebraska.  We stopped for the night at the Flying J, which is a part of the Pilot Travel Centers family.

Day three, April 24th, we continued on West, with our original goal of Wamsutter, Wyoming.  As we had exceeded our goal for the second day we easily did the same this day, making it to Rock Springs, Wyoming.  We stopped at the Flying J there, intending to spend the night but the auto lot was quite small.  We needed a few things and checked out the Wal-Mart store.  We discovered that they had a huge parking lot and there were several RV’s already there so we decided to spend the night in the Wal-Mart lot.


This photo is one Connie took from the van while we were driving, showing a general view of much of the state of Nebraska.









As we got into the Western part of Nebraska we began to see more hills and the beginnings of mountains.

The photo below shows the Wal-Mart “campground” in Rock Springs, WY.

 

In the next installment I’ll include some photos of the mountains we began to see as we got into the Wyoming area.

Read more...

Our 33 Day, 6731 Mile Road Trip—part 1

 

Early this year we began discussing making a trip to Oregon to visit our youngest son and his family.  We last saw them two years ago when we took the train out to Oregon.  We considered doing that again but Connie suggested that we drive.  As we began to plan the trip we decided that we would make it a little longer, time-wise, and a little longer, distance wise.  Our plan was to travel to Oregon, stay several days, then drive down through California, across Arizona and New Mexico and into Texas.  As I wrote about last fall, we are part of a prison ministry, and we desired to visit some of our brothers there.

To afford to make such a trip we began to plan ways to cut expenses.  There wasn’t much we could do to lessen the fuel costs but food and motels we could do something about.  We began planning to take much of our food with us—much of it being some of our home canned items.  To cut out the expense of motels we (along with help from my son here on the farm) designed a platform bed that would fit into our mini-van once the rear seats were removed.  I cut cardboard to fit the windows so that we could cover them at night.  Our plan was to stop at truck stops, Wal-Mart parking lots and campgrounds.

We embarked upon our journey on April 22, 2012.  Our goal for the day was the Pilot Travel Center in Boonville, MO.  We were up and on our way by 7:00 A.M.  By 4:30 P.M. we had completed the first 509 miles of our trip and had arrived at the Pilot in Boonville.  One of the landmarks we saw on this first day on the road was the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, MO.

 

Below is a pix of our mini-van parked in the auto parking lot at Pilot in
Boonville, MO.



You can see that the cardboard window covers are in place.  The side seen from the outside is covered with a reflective insulation.  Our mattress was the thick futon mattress from the futon in our spare room at home, and it was quite comfortable.

Part 2 will be posted later.

Read more...

WHAT KIND OF A DOG IS THIS?

In the late 1990’s we lived in a mobile home park in Bloomington, Illinois.  One of our neighbors in the park was quite an accomplished wood carver.  He offered to teach some of us how to carve.  So, for several weeks a few of us would go down once a week to his garage workshop and work on small carving projects.  One of the projects we did was an old hound dog.  The pattern for this dog was in one of my woodworking magazines.

The photo is rather dark but you can get the idea.  He is about 4-1/2 inches tall.  A few weeks ago we kept the grandchildren who live here on the farm while my son and his wife were away for a week.  Somehow the subject of wood carving came up and the boys were ready to try their hand.  We found some old knives that could be used and then it was to the magazines we turned to find some patterns.  I found my copy of the magazine that contained the plan I had used back in the ‘90’s.  Included was a companion dog to the one I had carved.

So, one of the grandsons and I decided to carve this dog.  I don’t have a pix of the grandson’s finished carving but he did a good job.  Here is a photo of my dog.



He is a bit shorter, only about 2-3/4” tall.  The original dog from the ‘90’s was carved from bass wood.  The 2012 dog is carved from tulip poplar from here on the farm.  Both were finished with water based poster paints.

Read more...