Silver Falls State Park, Silverton & Mt. Angel, Oregon

Left Helena on Thursday, spent the weekend in Portland with Aunt Dorothy and David and Karen. Headed south for Salem on Monday.

Wednesday - October 27th

We took the scenic drive from Salem to Silverton and Mt. Angel by way of Silver Falls State Park, the largest park in Oregon by acreage. We saw fields upon fields of Christmas trees and other ornamental conifers along the way.

This is the South Falls on the Trail of Ten Falls in the State Park. The trail combines four different hikes for a 7 to 8 mile hike in which you see ten of the falls in the park.

 

 

 

 

The trail actually goes behind several of the falls.

 

 

 

As John says, "So that's what the back side of water looks like." You can see the walking bridge at the bottom in the background.

View from the side after we walked behind the falls. There are a couple of people walking behind it.

Walking bridge at the bottom. This park is so beautiful, especially with the leaves changing color. I totally recommend this place to anyone who gets a chance to come here and do some hiking.

Coming back up the South Falls Loop Trail. It is the tallest of the falls in the park with a 177 foot drop. The park is at the 45th parallel, halfway between the equator and the north pole.

This is the South Falls Lodge. The furniture inside was made from two donated myrtle logs 5 ft. in diameter and 40 ft. long. Myrtle warps if it is not properly dried. It was dried in a kiln for 60 days. It went in weighing 18,000 pounds and came out weighing 8,000 pounds. It made 25 tables (with three inch tops), 82 chairs, 11 wall benches and fireplace benches and one large bureau for dishes and silverware. It's the only heavy type myrtle furniture in the nation.

This is at the Oregon Garden Resort in Silverton. It is an 80 acre botanical garden and resort with 20 themed gardens, trails, art, fountains and 103 garden themed rooms each with fireplace and patio. It has spectacular vistas and looks like a great place for a retreat or wedding and honeymoon. There is also a Frank Lloyd Wright house on the grounds. Silverton is a very pretty town and there are many murals around town depicting their past.

At Mt. Angel this paved walkway led uphill past the Twelve Stations of the Cross on the way up to Mount Angel Abbey and Seminary.

The Mount Angel Abbey was built in 1882 at the top of Tapalamaho, or Prayer Mountain. It was a sacred place to the Native Americans. Just down at the bottom of the hill is the Queen of Angels Monastery and Convent built the same year.

Just across the road from the Abbey was this field of hops, probably how the Abbey supported itself. Oregon grows 5,000 acres of hops. It produced 8.8 million pounds in 2006. There are 38 breweries just in the city of Portland, more than any other metropolitan area in the world. 42% of all draft beer consumed in Oregon is brewed in Oregon.

 

 

 

This 49 foot Glockenspiel in Mt. Angel was built four years ago. It is the tallest in the U.S. It chimes about a half dozen times a day. When it chimes, the bottom panel opens and the characters, representing their German/Swiss (Bavarian) past, rotate around while the music plays.

Their Oktoberfest mascot, Papa Oom Pah, plays the tuba. When the nun who started the convent rotates around, there is church choir music. When the monk comes around, there is musical chanting. There is an Indian with native drumming. The children on the swing come out at the end and sing "Edelweiss". There is also a dancing pioneer couple. An elderly gentlenan who was watching with us said they were his cousins and that they were the first couple married in Mt. Angel.

Touring the Capitol and downtown Salem tomorrow. On a side note, we paid $2.38 for gas in DesMoines and $3.05 in Spokane.

Tarra

Historic Helena, Mt.

Oct.6th - 20th

Happy Halloween from Helena! This is an all brick house painted lavendar. Seemed like the perfect haunted house to me.

The Capitol is beautiful inside. They give guided tours or you can pick up a pamphlet for a self-guided walk through. Across the street is the Charlie Russell and Western Art Museum. In the summer you can hop on the trolley here for a historic tour of the town.

This is another painted brick home. There are lots of these in town. They have a wonderful walking tour of the historic district, but there are great homes all over town with unique architectural features.

Sorry about this being sideways, but for some reason, I could not get it to rotate. This describes the house below.

The historic district is only a few blocks from our daughter's house, so I spent an afternoon just walking around admiring all the beautiful homes.

There were lots of cattle barons, mine owners, railroad tycoons, etc. back in the day. These are just a few examples of the incredible homes they built here. This describes the house below.

They also have the Myrna Loy Center downtown with plays, concerts and films. For you youngsters out there, Myrna Loy was a very famous actress back in the 30s, 40s and 5os. She was from Helena.

Some of the homes still have hitching posts in front of them and lots of them have 2 to 4 stall carriage houses in the rear with servant quarters on the second floor.

Many blocks still have brick sidewalks and one corner house actually had an old boardwalk on both sides.

This describes the house below.

Helena is in the valley, surrounded by mountains on all sides. They have very mild winter temperatures. It has been around 70 while we have been here with lows in the 30s at night.

Helping with the bathroom remodeling project. It's amazing what our daughter can get John to do, that I never could.

Babysitting in the camper while Mom and Dad are busy with projects in the house. John had to take our granddaughter to go potty while I was cooking. He hollered to ask me what to do. I said to just pull her pants up. He said, "I'll just shake her." Then I heard him say, "She pooed, what do I do?" I said, "I can't hear you." I guess everything came out okay.

Montana cowgirl.

Neighborhood football team.

Up and coming quarterback.

You have pushed me too far!

Happy Halloween from the grandkids.

But some are! It's a sad day at our house. We had to retire John's favorite shirt. He got it a few years ago when he hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back, while I rode the mules with my girlfriends.

Tomorrow we make our sad departure from our kids and grandkids before the weather turns cold. We are going to Portland for the weekend to visit John's aunt and cousin and then south.

On the road again.

Tarra

Uffda Days in Rutland, ND.

Sun, Oct. 3rd - Sat, Oct. 9th

Not every little town has a world record. Rutland, ND. is about 3 blocks by 3 blocks. With my baby brother and his family, we took Mom here to "Uffda Days" for her birthday. It is a five hour event (11:00 AM to 4:00 PM) the first Sunday in October.

They have kiddie train rides, museums, arts & crafts, old car show, and a parade. There is also lots of good food. We had Uffda (not Indian) Tacos and bought lots of lefse to take home. They fried over 5,000 pieces of lefse to sell.

We also tried the rommegrot, but I don't recommend it. It's a sort of hot pudding that looks and tastes like hot pancake batter. They drizzle hot butter over it and sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on it. I guess I'm not a very good Norwegian!

The parade had horses, old cars, trucks and tractors and lots of other good stuff......

including the Woobie Kazoobie Uffda Band! I wonder if they have any CDs out.

We stopped in Bismarck to visit my Dad's cousin and her husband and had a guided tour of the city and points of interest on Monday.

Traveling in western North Dakota on our way to Montana, this sculpture along the interstate marks the beginnning of The Enchanted Highway. South about twenty miles, there are many sculptures to see, but we have to go some other time, when we are not on a schedule. We skipped Medora and the Badlands, as we have been there in the past.

A view near Townsend, Mt. about 30 miles south of Helena. We will get to Helena in time to help our grandson with his paper route and babysit tomorrow night.

Celebrating our granddaughter's 2nd birthday with Carousel rides and ice cream.

Lions & tigers & bears. Oh my! Oh no, wait, it's a dinosaur!

I think the fish was her favorite. She should fit in well with the fishermen in my family.

What flavor did you get Grandpa? Mmmmm!

Our grandson doing warm-up drills before the game. He is #1 on the far right with his Dad, the assistant coach, next to him. Carter made an awesome touch down in the game, which they won 25 to 20.

This is how our granddaughter likes to watch the game, trying to keep Mom distracted from watching the game.

Grandpa is busy helping with the remodeling of the basement bathroom, when we are not playing with the grand kids. We will be staying here till the 21st.

On a side note, we were discussing funerals with Mom and she said she wanted to be cremated and we should mix her ashes with Dad's and bury them together. So my little brother asked if she still had one of those things with the crank on the side (egg beater), so we could use it to mix the ashes?????

Grandma Tarra signing off.