Planning on the fly...............

Wednesday night we had grabbed some information about local places and things to do.  Our only plan was that we had to be at the Portland airport by 8:30 p.m. to meet the rest of the family coming in from Utah.  The rest of the day was ours and we didn't have any plans except another stop at a beach.

Thursday morning we looked over our options and decided that we should head down to Depoe Bay which is a famous whale watching site.  I had considered going there for this trip and wanted to check it out for future reference...and I am always interested in seeing a whale.  I had found an area of covered bridges in one of the booklets we had found the night before but we had decided that it was too far to go.  However, at breakfast Gary said let's do it too so again off we went with our map and some goals............................

The beach--Road's End--

We had to stop to get a picture of this "Sambo's" restaurant.  I worked at Sambo's when I was a teenager in Amarillo, TX.  I didn't even know they still had them anywhere.  (There was concern about their "political correctness" back in the 70's).  This one is located in Lincoln City, OR.

Depoe Bay has some whales who stay almost year around near the mouth of the bay.  We went to a very small visitor's center but no whales in the area.  The best whale watching time is the spring when lots of whales travel north to Alaska.

Another small bridge over the harbor

From Depoe we headed inland crossing between Newport and Corvallis.  All over the place were huge trucks carrying logs to the mill.  Here is the back end of one truck.  You just hope they knew what they were doing when they tied those logs in.

 

As we traveled east I realized that we were going to be traveling in the area where my mom spent some of her growing up years.  I texted my sister to confirm my mother's birthplace and she texted me back "Corvallis" right when we were in that town.  It has changed a lot since the mid-1930s I am sure.  We turned south and traveled through Monroe along the western part of the Willamette Valley where my Owen pioneers settled in the 1800s.  I was disappointed that I couldn't find the Long Tom River on the map because there are stories from both my mom's and my grandfather's lives about that river.  It turns out that we were very close as we traveled south to Cottage Grove, but I didn't know until we got home. 

 

This is one of the disadvantages of planning on the fly.  It would have been great for me to read some of my mom's and grandfather's histories to be able to connect places to events in their lives.  However, sitting at home in Utah planning this trip I don't think we would have even thought to make this side trip so far from Portland.  It was only in the spur of the moment fun of a day together that we would take off and travel to see some more bridges.  (Have I mentioned that I have an awesome husband!)

 

South of Eugene, Oregon, is the small town of Cottage Grove who decided to become famous for its covered bridges.  In a thirty mile loop you can see 6 restored bridges, only one is in current use and another that you can drive across and then turn around and drive back.  It is probably not worth a trip from Utah unless you love bridges and for some reason I do so here they are:

 

 

This was an "artsy" type of town and many of the
buildings had art work on the side.  Here is one of a covered bridge
on a downtown office building.

Centennial bridge:  This was rebuilt in 1996 from timbers from two covered bridges which were being dismantled.

 

The Swinging bridge:  crossing a creek in the city, it has been rebuilt several times to allow school children to cross the creek to go to school. It moves when you walk on it which can be a bit unnerving.

The creek....

 We made it back and forth-

The Chambers Railroad Bridge is the only known covered bridge for a railroad west of the Mississippi.  Although you can see it is very tall, steam trains still had to be modified with shorter stacks to be able to travel safely through the bridge.

It is a very beautiful bridge inside.

On our way to the next bridge we went over a bridge and next to us was this beautiful train bridge.  Even uncovered, bridges are amazing.

 And we saw a flock of wild turkeys in the hills.

This is the Steward Covered Bridge.  Although it no longer connects to a road on the other side you can drive across it and then turn around and come back.  They say that it is a popular place for weddings and you can see it is pretty inside as well.

I loved the red bridge called Mosby Creek Bridge.

 

This is the Dorena Covered Bridge which is the only one that is still in active use.  It goes over the Row River. And yes it is true I ran across this bridge...but that is a story that only Gary can tell.

 This is the bike trail bridge that parallels the Dorena Bridge so I was able to walk out on it and take..

 this side picture of the covered bridge.

It was now 4:00 and we had about 100 miles to go north to get to Portland and meet up with everyone else.  Here is the view out our sunroof.  Perfect fluffy clouds.

Now here occur really the only flaw in our whole trip planning.  I had not made reservations for Thursday night in the Portland area because I wasn't sure exactly where we might want to spend the night.  I thought we could find a place and get checked in before we headed to the airport and then everyone could just head to bed when they arrived.

The first part of the plan worked great.  We arrived into the Portland area around 6 with plenty of time to find a hotel.  I headed us out to the Hillsboro area reasoning that then in the morning we wouldn't have to drive though Portland traffic on our way to the coast.  The one flaw---no hotel rooms in Hillsboro or anywhere.  We finally sat in a hotel lobby at their computer and looked for hotel rooms anywhere near by.  We ended up make a reservation at a hotel in Washington state about 10 miles north east from the airport....and then we crossed our fingers that it was in a safe part of town.

We hopped back into our car and headed to the airport and again cross the Willamette River on a bridge.  This is the view of a couple of other bridges down the river.

 

We grabbed dinner at the airport and then met the family so the rest of our vacation could begin.  Gary and I put about 300 miles on our rental car those first two days.  It was a amazing time to be together and there is no one else I would rather spend my days with driving in a car and seeing the world.

 

Hotel was fine (relief to be in bed safe and sound.)  Let the family adventure begin.................