8/15/2017 - Oregon Trail, Dahlias

Tuesday - Another 9:00 to 9:00 adventure.  Collins and Marilyn went off to Salem to tour the Capitol building and meet up with Rachel.  We picked up Jim and Dixie for breakfast, then headed south for a full day of events.  After a fine breakfast, our first stop was the "End of the Oregon Trail," where we watched a very interesting 25-minute file of the journey, and walked through the exhibits.

They had candle- and butter-making for the kids.  There was a list of supplies that the emigrants were provided to load their wagons for the trip from St. Louis to Oregon City, the End of the Trail.  We spent quite a bit of time here, but eventually we headed out again. I said yesterday I called Joe and Dixie "Lewis and Clark," since they were three today, were they the Three Stooges?  We won't be winning any speed races today.

We had seen a picture in the exhibit area of a waterfalls, so we got directions and drove down to it, which was right in town.  It is the second-largest waterfall by volume in North America (I assume Niagara Falls is the first).  Quite a few industries were located right here, using the power of the falls.

From there we headed south about 10 miles to the town of Canby, where Swan Island Dahlias is located.  This is the largest Dahlia farm in North America.  As we walked up to the gift shop, there were two excellent roosters out front, so of course I took a picture.  A lady walked past and said, "All these flowers and you are taking a picture of the roosters!"  But she didn't know about Brenda and roosters!

The flowers were lovely, field after field, row after row.  I took lots of pictures but will post just a few of my favorites.  Dixie bought a bouquet for Joy.

 This one, called the Grand Finale, looks like a starburst at the fireworks.

 This one is for Barbara, called Flip Flop

These next ones were all in the test area, and they were gorgeous.

From there, we headed toward Silver Falls State Park, with a stop at the Markham Inn for lunch.  Spendy, very slow, but they had beautiful wooden tables and bar.  I traded out my "piles of fries" for onion rings.  She told me it would be $2.50 extra and I said ok.  When my order came, I had 3 onion rings, for the $2.50.  Those "piles of fries" must not have had much trade-in value.

As we continued our drive, Dixie spotted a colorful field off to the left that she wanted to check out, so Joe turned around and we drove back to the Triangle Farms. 

We still didn't know what we were seeing, so I googled it this morning.  And I still don't know.  But apparently Triangle Farms is a big deal.

"We produce turf, forage and native grass seeds as well as legume, native, wildflower, forbs, garden flower, herb, cover crops and pollinator seeds for wholesale and government agencies throughout the world."

Our GPS guided us on a very crooked, hilly road, and we eventually arrived at the "back door" of Silver Falls State Park -- we arrived at the exit and then drove through to the entrance.  There were no brochures in the kiosk, but we walked down to the first falls and there was a gift shop on the way, with brochures, so at least we knew were we were.

They have the "Trail of Ten Falls" and some look like a fairly short hike from the parking lot, but we just did one, the 177-foot South Falls.  Dixie and Jim made it to the top overlook, but didn't have much of a view of it.  Joe and I hike down, took pictures of Dixie from the bridge, and walked behind the falls.

 We took this from the bridge, about halfway down to the falls.

The trail led completely behind the falls, and there were even a couple of overhangs you could get under.  That's me, on the far left, in the white shirt.

 Nice view of sun filtering through the trees.

We made it back up, and wound our way out of the Park.  Would have liked to have seen more falls, but everyone was tired, and Jim was pretty sure he only had one waterfalls in him today.  I logged 9,087 steps today, so we had a pretty busy day.

As we headed back toward Joy's we could see the smoke from the fires around Warm Springs, and even drove through the smoke from one field.  We don't know if this is just normal to burn off the field after harvesting, or if they were back-burning for fire protections, but it was right beside the road.  And even the smoke in the distance, we don't know if it was forest fires, field burns, or back-burns.

As we drove through Silverton, which Jim had said was a very neat little town, we drove right past the Oregon Garden, so Joe turned in there.  It was about 6:00 so nothing was open, but we saw what we could in a drive=by.  We didn't know much about it, so I googled it.

"The Oregon Garden is an 80-acre botanical garden and tourist attraction in Silverton, Oregon, United States. Opened in 1999, it is home to over 20 gardens including the Rose Garden, Children's Garden and Silverton Market Garden. It is open 365 days a year and hosts both public and private events. The land is also home to the Gordon House, Oregon's only Frank Lloyd Wright home, and The Oregon Garden Resort."

We saw a waterfalls and a few flowers, but that was all.
 

We were in farming country, saw lots of crops, vegetables, nut trees, grass/hay fields, and grapes.  Tons of grapes in various stages -- healthy, not quite ready to pick, dry, dead.  We drove by one field where the vines all looked dried out, which Joe remarked on.  I said, "that's where they get dry wine."  Joy later said she had heard that some of the growers had cut back their vines right before the heat hit, and the vines had died.  That may be what happened there.

Joe needed a pitstop so we pulled into a McDonalds.  They had a cowboy on a bucking bronco, in a fountain, waving us in.  Must have been an upscale McDonalds.

We made one more stop.  Dixie wanted to stop at Mike's Drive-In for ice cream (that was our dinner), so we did that, and ate it outside at the picnic table.  The weather was lovely today, so this was a good end.  There was a pretty, glass-looking bench on the corner here, my last picture of the day.

We got back to Joy's about 7:30, visited a bit, then headed back to camp before curfew.  We felt like we saw a lot of things today, and really enjoyed spending the day with Dixie and Jim.  But we were certainly ready to call it a night.