Friday, August 16, 2013

Wednesday, August 15, 2013




 I can’t believe I am almost caught up to real time (I am writing about Wednesday on Thursday).

After our wonderful history lesson on Tuesday, we decided to just head south on I-5 and spend some time at the National Monuments in southern Oregon. The freeway was full of trucks. I’m not sure which was worse, the trucks today or the windy, bumpy roads yesterday.

This part of the state is farmland. The early settlers found farming in the Willamette Valley to be good. We passed wineries, cows in their pastures, corn, and other crops. We discovered wild blackberries growing along the roads, so we stopped to pick some. Much better than store bought!

I was reading in my tour book that this part of central Oregon was noted for the quantity of covered bridges that had survived. So we stopped in Cottage Grove OR which advertised a covered bridge tour. We stopped for a map and spent some time driving around to look at all the kinds of covered bridges in the area. Most of them were off to the side of the road and were only for walking or biking. We did get to drive through one and it was a little scary. I’m not sure how good a shape it was in. We were told that one in the city park had been refurbished to the tune of $2 million in 2012. It had been badly damaged in a wind storm, but the city wanted to preserve it. They are also painting murals on the sides of buildings. This is a place working hard to attract tourists and it was a very pleasant stop.

Then it was on to Grants Pass OR where we stopped for the night.

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