Thursday -We moseyed over to Joy’s about 11:00, and found
Joy and Dixie out surveying the property.
Rich has quite an inventory of firewood, in the woodshed, in front of
the woodshed, and along the driveway.
They burn wood all winter, so they shouldn’t get cold for several years.
Another project they have started (last year) is wood steps
and flower boxes from this driveway up to the house. It is still a work in progress.
We all wanted to see the work that Collins and Rich had done
last night on the shed, so we walked over there. We need this building at our house to park the motorhome under.
And I finally got back to the garden, which is flourishing,
to take some pictures. Joe picked 3
tomatoes today and brought them back to our RV.
Joy and Marilyn picked a batch of green beans last night.
Dixie had some papers for Joe and her to sign, so we had to
hunt up a notary. On that parking lot of Fred Meyers,
we spotted the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile.
We’ve seen this on the road a few times over the years but never parked
in a parking lot.
We decided on a scenic drive that Joy had recommended, on
Hwy 224 along the Clackamas River from Estacada to Ripplebrook. This is part of the West Cascades Scenic Byway. We stopped for lunch at the Cazadero Inn in Estacada, where a
mural on the building across the parking lot greeted us. This was basically the last place to eat
before we got on our scenic drive, but it was very nice, with table views
overlooking the pretty Clackamas River.
And the food was good, too. Plus,
they had a few slot machines in the bar area, and I won about $35.
(the green in the middle of the photo is the river)
We stopped at a few pull-offs, and drove down into some of
the campgrounds. The river just bubbled
along, sometimes rippling over boulders and rocks, sometimes very smooth. Part of this drive took us into the Mt. Hood National Forest.
We even got a scenic shot of us.
The water was green-colored, but very clear.
We stopped at one area where there was a raft launch. We’ve never seen one of these before. It would be fun to watch them launch a raft
off of this, but it looked like they would hit a boulder at the bottom. We wondered if the river is a bit low.
And across the road from the river, we saw a little
waterfall right by the highway.
We turned around at Ripplebrook and went in the Camp Store,
where I found eclipse sunglasses.
Everywhere else I’ve asked today has either sold out or never had them,
so we were happy to have finally found some since we are in the pretty direct
path of the eclipse. We had seen the
sunglasses in Prineville last month but were not smart enough to buy them then. As we got back to Estacada, we decided to
stop for ice cream in the same strip our lunch restaurant was in, so we sat outside and enjoyed our little treat. It was another lovely day here.
Jim mentioned that the pub they go to has $10 fillets on
Thursdays, so after we reconnected with Joy, we all went to the pub and had our
steaks. Rich was busy with his wood, he
had a buddy come by to help him, so he didn’t go with us. When we got back to Joy’s, Rich finished up
his work and joined us to play 6-handed euchre.
We sat outside on the back patio, I took this picture about 8:50 p.m.
About 15 minutes later, Joe remembered that we had a curfew,
so we finished up our game (girls 1, guys 2), and headed back to camp. We got to the entrance about 20 minutes
before 10:00, but they were already checking tags so we were cutting it a
little close.
We all really enjoyed the day. It was fun spending time with Dixie and Jim
again, and the drive was just the kind we love.
We spotted Mt. Hood a couple of times, the weather was perfect, and we
didn’t even get locked out of our campground (in which case we would have had to park outside the gate and walk in to our camper, or get Collins or Marilyn out of bed to come get us) – all ended good.
