Time for some traveling

After school yesterday, I decided to tour part of the route I am creating for my book I am working on as it was sunny (even though it was supposed to rain). So with my map and camera with me, I drove some of the back roads of Marion County to find out which roads offer the best views and oldest family-owned farms - the ones that are called Century Farms. I also look for roads that travel past places such as county and state parks, small towns where they can refuel and eat at a local cafe, and even drive over covered bridges.

So anyway, here are a few my favorite pictures from yesterday:

 One of my favorite newly-made barns I have seen in the valley.

 A nice older barn that needs some painting...or not.

 A nice sign for a quaint cemetery east of Salem.

 A well-hidden semi-public reservoir that only the Silverton residents know about. I was lucky enough to talk to one  of those locals and get this picture of the lone house on the lake.

 A farm overlooking the colorful Silver Creek Canyon.

 Mount Hood rising above the hillside near Silverton.

 An oddity of the 1940's - the sign to the left of the door says 1946 Springbrook. It would be interesting to see what is inside.

Mount Hood rising above the Fall foliage.

A nice day for a drive.

As today is the first of several days during this week in which it is sunny on a day I don't work, I decided to go for a Sunny-day Drive. In eastern Oregon, I suppose a Sunday Drive can be done just about every week of the year, but here in the western 1/3 of Oregon, we have to time our outings with the weather. At any rate, I have been trying to find the best backroad trips of the Willamette Valley, and so far am working on a section of the first trip. This trip winds its way through Aumsville, Stayton, Sublimity, and goes north towards Silverton using the country roads with the best scenery, mountain views, and Century Farms. My plan is to create a book that showcases these backroad trips along with places to stop along the way, such as small town Cafes, County Parks, Covered Bridges, and so on.

So, around noon today, I set out for the first run of the trip, going through Aumsville and stopping at Aumsville Ponds County Park. If this place is nice in Spring, then Fall makes it great:

 The Canadian Geese all lined up for me.

I wonder if the resident geese are still there?

Setting off from there, I went to Stayton to get something to eat at the Covered Bridge Cafe. You can read my article about it in November on the Mid-Willamette Explorer blog. FYI, the Stayton Burger is the Best...Burger...Ever. After that, I checked out the Stayton-Jordan Bridge, which may also get featured on the M-WE in  November. until then, here are a few pictures:

I had to stoop on a branch in the muddy bank for this shot.

After all that fun, I headed back home on some of the scenic backroads - note the gravel road in some of the pictures. What can be a finer backroad than one that is unpaved?

 Looking back at a farmer and his field.

A wind mill rises above the trees east of Salem.

Once again, I became too busy to keep up with my blogs.

As I started on my second job at Safeway back in June, I soon found that I had become too busy to do the things I had wanted to do during the summer. As for my other job at the mobile slaughter, I will probably leave before the year's end since it has become unreliable -- for one, it is hard to get a hold of my boss there; on the other hand, several bounced checks from the customers have made it so I am basically working without pay.

Aside from those two dilemmas, I will be going back to college starting tomorrow to begin on my degree in photojournalism. For my first term back, I decided to take a most likely easy, yet interesting course on the geography of Oregon. This serves two purposes - one, to get me back into the mindset of college and studying; and two, to get me to find out what classes would be best for me to achieve my goals. So on every Tuesday, I will be able to talk with instructors and advisers that would know the best classes to take.


Even though I was quite busy during the summer, I did manage to go to a few places. The Oregon Garden was one of those places, and I intend to go again several times next year. Here are a few pictures:

In late June, I checked out the 'World Beat Festival,' and on the 4th of July, I went to Independence's 'Western Days.' From the World Beat Festival, I snapped these pictures:

 These were African masks that were being sold

 I love Native American Dances.

This little guy is a descendent of the Aztecs...or did they say Mayans?

I also went to the Oregon State Fair just to view the quilts on display (they had double the number of participants that last year). Two of my favorite are below - unfortunately, most of my pictures came out blurry because I was in a hurry:

That about sums up the last three months. And thanks to the rain, there hasn't been much to go see for the past two weeks.

Red, White, and Blueberry Salad

Here's a recipe for a good summer dessert that I came up with a few days after July 4th. All you need are raspberries and strawberries for the 'red,' Cool Whip for the 'white,' blueberries, and a container to put them in. The amount of each ingredient is totally up to you. I actually didn't need this much raspberries.

 

Start off with a thin layer of Cool Whip on the bottom of the container. Next, add a layer of strawberries. Once you have enough for that layer, add another thin layer of Cool Whip.

 

Next, add a layer of blueberries and cover them with another thin layer of Cool Whip.

 

Add another layer of strawberries followed by another thin layer of Cool Whip. Finally decorate the top with blueberries and raspberries any way you like.

One last thing, don't forget to enjoy with others. Serves 6-8.

A trip to Roaring River County Park

After finding out what an undiscovered little gem of a park that the Aumsville Ponds were, I decided to check out Roaring River County Park in Linn County. As this county park will be featured next month on my other blog, Mid-Willamette Explorer, I will just post some of the photos I took. If there is no name below a flower, it is because I have yet to identify it. Many of the flowers in the park are ones that I have never seen before.

My favorite photo of the day

My second favorite photo of the day.

The forest is reclaiming the table.

My third favorite photo of the day.

This flower is not in my plant book.

 Himalayan Blackberry - Invasive Species

 I believe this is part of the carrot/parsnip family

 Oceanspray

 This might be a species of Forget-me-not

Mock-Orange

Fog across the field

This morning there was a small layer of fog at the back of the field behind my house, so I figured I would get a picture of it while I went about doing the morning chores.

1,000 views

I figured that I would put up a few statistics once this blog had 1,000 views.

My first blog (Beaver Country Ramblings)

15.5 months
70 posts
1,002 views

My second blog (Travels of Oregon)
5.5 months
62 posts
660 views

My third blog (Mid-Willamette Explorer)
1.5 months
9 articles
396 views

I would like to say thanks to all my readers, especially the ones who wait for me to post something new.

Trapper's Encampment at Champoeg State Park

After getting lunch yesterday at the Burning Boar BBQ, which will be featured on Mid-Willamette Explorer next moth, I headed to Champoeg State Park to check out the Fur Trapper's Encampment event. Those that hosted the event were clad in pioneer-era clothing and featured anything from old-style canvas tents to flintlocks. Out of all the items that were shown off, my favorite was the hand-mad birch bark canoe which used white cedar boards to line the inside. Below are some of the photos from the event.

 This guy is making sparks with flint

 

This guy is making round bullets the old way.