I decided to give our Garmin GPS a chance to redeem itself and asked it to plot a path to Cottage Grove that avoided as many freeways as possible. I'm happy to say that it did a great job! We had a fantastic trip through the country along nice highways with very little traffic. The drive became a wonderful part of our vacation, instead of that dreaded waste of time on the freeway required just to get to the vacation spot.
We arrived Friday afternoon, found a motel, and took off to explore a little bit of the trail. The trail is a 17 mile converted railroad and meanders along Row River and Dorena Lake. You catch a view of a couple of the covered bridges and several old barns as you make your way out into the country. Cottage Grove is nestled at the foot of the Cascade Mountains which provides for some stunning scenery. However, the first day we only went to the start of the lake which was about six miles from the trailhead.
On Saturday we rode to the end of the trail and back for a nice 30 mile ride. Since the trail is a converted railroad, it is a gentle slope (no more than 4 degrees). This worked very well for a couple of old people who are out to see the wonders of creation, not to determine the extent of our endurance.
We stopped to watch the fishermen and a Great Blue Heron on Dorena Lake, gaze at a few farms, and to eat some very yummy blackberries that populate much of the side of the trail. Here's a picture of one of the barns along the trail.
After the morning ride, we took a trip in the car to view the six covered bridges in the area and a swinging pedestrian bridge. Most of these bridges are not open to traffic, but they have been preserved as a reminder of the ways life used to be. They were all built in the 1930's and 1940's and are in very good shape, with the exception of a covered railroad bridge in the heart of Cottage Grove which is barely holding together.
On our trip home, we asked Garmin to plot a course through our home town of Lebanon, Oregon. That, too, was a nice quiet and relaxing trip. That is until I decided that I wanted to stop at Fry's Electronics which is along the I-5 freeway. The store was full of wonderful electronic gadgets and I thoroughly enjoyed myself and Lesley enjoyed watching me enjoy myself. She's nice like that. :-) But from there, it only made sense to make the rest of our trip on I-5 and I-205. We saw more cars in the first five minutes on the freeway than we saw in two days on the back country roads. However, I should be thankful for the crowded freeways which carry the traffic that would normally be on the country roads that I enjoyed so thoroughly.
1 comment:
A river named after a quarrel, huh? I suppose it's good the sheep and cattle didn't get into a row, as well (a cow row?). And to think that the ranchers could have got all their ducks into a row, too. Farm animals...
Sounds like you and mom had a good trip. I also saw a Blue Heron the other day. I took pictures of him snatching a fish from the water, but I was so far away the pictures didn't turn out very well.
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