Visiting SalemJul 18, 2010
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The Park in front of the Capital
Beautiful
View of the Capital
| Today was a wonderful day… We had a lazy morning playing on the computer with the fireplace turned on while most of the rest of the country was hotter then Hades… Our mornings have been cool and cloudy until about lunch time and then the clouds disappear and the sun comes out and off come the sweaters and out come the shorts.. We Didn’t wait for the sun before heading over to Salem to check out the capitol city of Oregon… We only had about a 15 mile ride and there we were… Right at the State Capital that is surrounded by the Capitol State Park… This was different than any other Capitol.. Built in 1938 the structure is actually the third Capitol since fire destroyed the first two..… On top of the dome sit’s the “Gold Pioneer”; the statue faces west , gazing upon the the route of the Oregon Trail Pioneers… Of course we have studied all about that before and actually followed much of the Oregon Trail before…. Since my great-grandmother came to Oregon from Illinois on this trail it has been of special interest to us. The Park has diamond inlays with the names and dates of all of the county’s in Oregon. There is also a lot of underground walkways to get from each building…. If you notice in the pictures, the DOT does not have central AC anywhere…. Each room has a window air conditioner…. Next we drove a few blocks to the Mission Mill Museum, a designated “American Treasure” where you can learn the history of fabric production… Of course Oregon is famous for many fabrics with the one I think is the most famous; Pendleton Woolen Mills…. When we had our clothing stores we bought a lot at that time on Jantzen and White Stag… I know their were others but right now I can’t think of them… Much to our disappointment, this was closed on Sunday… We may have to come back again before we leave as this was one of the places I really wanted to see. Our next stop was another winery… Not just any winery though… Honeywood Winery is Oregon’s oldest producing winery….. This place had some of the most interest ring gift items we have seen as well as some very good wine… I bought one new bottle of wine and Bill purchased some of the things that go along with it… I could have stayed there all day but we had a lot more things to see in Salem… Our next destination was to the Bush House Museum. When we got close we found out that this was the weekend they had the Salem Art Fair and Festival going on… The festival is one of the largest in the Pacific Northwest and is very busy… We finally found a parking place and started to walk to the festival when we both stopped and said, “WHY”. We have been to many art festivals across the US and we do not have room to purchase anything they have on display… We also had a ton of things that we wanted to see more so back we went to the truck and when we pulled out we had two other cars fighting for our space… Next we went to Salem’s Riverfront Park… We had planned on taking a walk along the Willamette River but when we got there we thought we had arrived in Sturgis during the first week in August… The park was filled with motorcycles…. They had a special weekend going on… By the time we got there late on Sunday afternoon severalk of the bikers had already left but I can just imagine what it was like yesterday… As we walked back to our truck we passed a shop that had some of the older motorcycles inside and I could not believe the prices… Made me really wish I still had some of the ones we used to sell in our shop back in the late 60’s… I saw one Harley going for $10,000 I could have bought for about $900 but the ones I really wish I still had is the Ducati ’s that we sold…. Especially the one like my son, Randy, used to race… It now sells for over $75.000.00.… If only we had a crystal ball huh? We found a nice seafood restaurant to have lunch outdoors and right across from the downtown mall… The food was the best seafood I have had in ages… Bill and I shared a surf and turf meal…. He had the steak and I had the shrimp stuffed with Dungeness crab and lobster meat and topped with a lobster sauce… We also shared green beans, red potatoes, fresh sour dough bread and a house salad… It was wonderful… Oregon has many covered bridges and we got a map of where they are… Darn, we were close to one in Portland but didn’t know it… There are a couple that are near where we are now and we will try to see as many as possible along the way… Many of them are in the Eugene area and I am not sure if we will be able to see them towing our house along behind us… We’ll do the best we can… Today though, we went to #49 out of 51 on the list….It is called the Stayton-Jordan Covered Bridge and is one of the most beautiful we have seen… You be the judge with the pictures we took… The drive back to Silverton was on a scenic highway and we were thrilled… The road took us through tree farms (Oregon produces the most Christmas trees of any state), wheat land that really gives meaning to the verse from the song America “for amber waves of grain” , cattle, flower fields and vineyards… Like I said from the start. It was a WONDERFUL day……. Later……….. |
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