Albany, Oregon and Environs

The primary purpose for being in the vicinity of Albany, Oregon was to attend the FMCA Northwest Area rally which was held at the Linn County Fairgrounds.  The site was quite nice and the weather was pleasant, we knew a fair number of the attendees and the entertainment was, well, entertaining, especially a young pianist named Brady Goss who can play more notes in less time than nearly everybody.  He’s a big fan of Jerry Lee Lewis and it becomes pretty obvious in very little time.  He has a pleasant voice and puts on a fine one-man show so we hardly noticed that the seating was a long way from comfortable.

There were only two seminars on the schedule which interested me:  the first conflicted with the Chapter Fair which we had to attend and the second was mysteriously cancelled.  Howie attended one of the Geeks on Tour seminars and came away with some new information which we hope to put to use in this blog.  As always, the Geeks’ seminars were very well attended. 

There were no hook-ups at the rally site so we decided to move to a full-service campground for a few days to charge the coach batteries and empty the tanks that needed to be empty and fill the tanks that needed to be filled before moving to “the country” for a visit with our faux relatives, Gail (aka Ralph) and Ruthee.  The move from the fairgrounds to the campground has to be the shortest on record for us…maybe a mile, maybe less.  Certainly less as the crow flies.

We kicked off our visit to Albany with a tour of the Historic Carousel and Museum right smack downtown near the Willamette River.  This museum is unique in that it truly puts the cart before the horse – the carousel doesn’t exist yet, at least not in a completed state, but the museum is a beehive of activity.  It’s where the carousel animals are being created, designed by the sponsors of each creature, carved by local woodworkers and painted by local artists.  It’s a long-term project, still several years (and many dollars) away from completion.  The animals are everywhere in the building, some completed, others barely recognizable as they emerge from blocks of wood.  We came away all smiles to see the terrific enthusiasm this project has generated in the town. 

The following day we started our tour with a stop at the Albany Regional Museum which is housed in a sizeable old brick building smack downtown.  We were told the building had been moved from another downtown locale back in the early 1900’s by lifting it onto large logs and rolling it down the street, moving the last log forward as progress was made.  If I recall correctly, we were told it took 19 days to move the building a few blocks but no mortar was cracked and no windows broken.  “Easy does it” must have been that moving crew’s motto.  The museum contains the usual artifacts from the city’s past, all nicely displayed, but our attention was captured by a display of wood carvings by one Robert O. Ferguson, a local shopkeeper and designer of menswear stores.  Each object was carved from one piece of wood.  The museum owns all of Ferguson’s work except those pieces which he gave away as gifts so they are able to change the display frequently.  Most have botanical themes and some incorporate intricate carvings in ivory and brass as well as wood.

Our next stop was the Monteith House, the first structure in Albany, built by two brothers as a store and residence.  Unlike so many house museums which are furnished with items “of the period”, nearly everything here was owned by the Monteiths and used in the house at one time or another.

It was barely a 20 mile drive to Gail and Ruthee’s farm in the foothills of the Cascades but we managed to make an adventure of it by taking a few wrong turns.  At one point the GPS failed us totally and showed only a blank gray screen with nary a road indicated.  We thought calling for help was the prudent thing to do, given the number of low tonnage bridges in the area.  And the coach had developed a highly irritating beeping sound, a malfunction of the warning that the parking brake was engaged.  Which it wasn’t, since we were moving forward.

Gail and Ruthee have their big meal at noon and we weren’t late for a hearty meal of salmon and all the fixin’s.  Although it has been some time since Ruthee was a Girl Scout leader, she kicked right into her organizational mode and had a busy schedule made out for us but with plenty of built-in flexibility “just in case”.  On Friday we raced up to Portland to attend a corporate picnic with Gail’s former co-workers (where he’s known as Ralph).  As we approached Portland we noticed traffic was bad in the southbound lanes and it remained so until it was time for us to make the long slow return trip.  We heard that it was still congested the next day.  You would have thought that both Seattle and Portland had been ordered evacuated!

Ruthee had planned a birthday party for herself for Saturday, even though her birthday wasn’t until Tuesday.  Friends and family arrived in time to sing a slightly off-key version of “Happy Birthday” and dig into a huge cake purported to contain two pounds of chocolate mousse. (If anyone is looking for those two pounds, I know where they are!) And if anybody left their car windows rolled down, I’m pretty sure they found a baseball bat sized zucchini on the passenger seat.  Ruthee seemed almost desperate to find good homes for all those squash lurking in the garden.

Our parking spot was fairly near the road but traffic was minimal and we were able to appreciate the peace and quiet that settles over the area once the logging trucks have finished their daily runs.  It was so quiet that the fan on our refrigerator was starting to annoy me.  It sounded sooo loud.  The field across the street is given over to the raising of grass seed and so we were able to watch the harvesting of a crop.  Sizeable fleets of large pieces of farm equipment are involved.  Some grass seed fields require burning in order to prepare for next season’s crop.  Lucky we missed that step in the process.  If I recall correctly, Linn County is the grass seed capital of the United States. 

A cousin of Gail’s was working at the Scio Historical Museum on Sunday afternoon so we took a run to town for a visit.  The museum is housed in a tiny train station moved from West Scio and is crammed to the rafters with items from the area’s past.  This quilt was one of several made from ribbons won at the fair.

 

Linn County is known for its covered bridges and so Ruthee had planned a day trip for us to visit them all.  We packed a picnic lunch and set off, stopping first at Hannah Bridge which spans Thomas Creek.  The logging trucks (unloaded) can use this bridge but have to take another route once they’ve piled five or six Douglas firs aboard.  The Shimanek Bridge also crosses Thomas Creek and is one of the most photographed (probably because it’s red).  By the time we got to the Larwood Bridge it was declared “time for lunch” and we unpacked our sandwiches, found a picnic table in the shade and enjoyed a pleasant meal on the banks of the Roaring River.  The Roaring River doesn’t actually roar but it does babble pretty loud just before it dumps into the calm and quiet Crabtree Creek.  If it hadn’t been for a brochure picked up somewhere along the line, we never would have noticed that we were seeing something very unusual….the river empties into the creek, not vice versa.

Not far from our picnic spot is the Roaring River Fish Hatchery where we stopped to check out the rainbow and steelhead trout and the sturgeons.  It wasn’t long before we spotted an osprey circling overhead, probably keeping a sharp eye out for dinner.  Some of the tanks were covered with netting but many weren’t and we can only wonder what the annual  loss is to fish-eating birds.  The sturgeons were probably not on any bird’s menu since you’d need a crane to lift one but some of the rainbows were the right size to get toted away.

Ruthee was looking forward to spending her birthday in Salem, specifically having breakfast on the house at Denny’s.  But first we stopped at the outlet mall to troll through the stores.  There were not many bargains to be had but we did acquire a cheese knife and two small spatulas at one of the kitchen gadget shops.  On the way home we stopped at Willamette Valley Vineyards for a bit of wine tasting and to admire the wonderful view.  Unfortunately forest fires contributed to a hazy atmosphere and so the views were less long and slightly out of focus.  But the wine was good.  I had to fight the urge to buy a tee shirt which proclaims “It’s Willamette, Dammit”.  The wine was spendy and so was the tee shirt which may explain why they are expanding an already enormous facility. 

During our stay, Howie had made arrangements with Freightliner in Salem to address the beeping brake bell so we got an early start and headed north.  Nothing ever goes quite the way you’ve planned when it comes to RV repairs so we ended up sitting around the drivers’ lounge at Freightliner for about three hours only to discover within ten minutes of departure that, no, the problem had not been solved.  We had to turn around and go back to Salem where they removed a solenoid and silenced that stupid bell - which is probably what they should have done in the first place.  Fortunately, once we emerged on the north side of Portland traffic was sparse and we made good time, arriving in Elma, Washington before dark.  Not that it isn’t always dark in Elma.  The sun must come up eventually but after five days here we haven’t seen much of it.  It did make a brief appearance the day we visited Olympia where we covered every inch of their fabulous farmers market and took a walking tour of the city-sponsored artwork along the waterfront.  There is a contest underway to select the next outdoor sculpture for the city to purchase.

We have a few more days here in gloomy Elma and then it’s back to Troutdale to restock the fridge and head for the Oregon Coast and an eventual reunion with our fun faux relatives.

Moses Lake, Washington and Pendleton, Oregon

We had, on a previous visit, hit most the highlights of the area surrounding Moses Lake, Washington so this time we contented ourselves with kicking back and relaxing.  Anticipating some extremely hot weather, we upgraded our campsite to 50 amp service so we could run both air conditioners if necessary.  And there were days when it was certainly necessary.  Dry heat or not, 100 degrees is not comfortable!

We hadn’t visited the city of Wenatchee on our first trip so we took this opportunity to make the 60 mile drive northwest to explore it.  Wenatchee’s original claim to fame was its bountiful crops of apples and it continues to produce mega-crops of wonderful apples.  But it also produces many other types of fruits and berries and has recently begun to produce  grapes both for the table and for the winery.  Being the “high desert”, nothing grows without irrigation but the volcanic ash soil is ready to produce as soon as the magic ingredient of water is added.  It was a broiling hot day, destined to reach into triple digits, so we were happy to enter the cool confines of the Wenatchee Valley Museum.  Although we appreciated the climate indoors, we were less than impressed with the contents of the museum.  It told the story of the mighty apple in great detail but told other bits and pieces of the area’s history incoherently. 

One of the more interesting items we spotted was this camera, dating back to the 1920s and manufactured in Rochester, New York where it lived in the shadow of the once-mighty Eastman Kodak Company.  Sears, Roebuck purchased the rights to the camera and sold it under the Sears brand.

 

A far more interesting museum, perhaps because it was such a surprise, was the Grant County Museum in Ephrata, Washington.  The museum tour begins in the largest building which is crammed with interesting items from the area’s past where we were left to our own devices to make sense of the collection.  But once we’d explored that building to our satisfaction, a guide joined us and led us to a series of outbuildings, each housing a collection pertinent to the building which held it.  For example, a collection of pianos, organs and religious articles were housed in an old Catholic church.  It was when one guide was replaced with another that we realized we were about to get our money’s worth and then some.  The museum consists of a lot of buildings!  An entire town, in fact, and a relay team of docents is probably necessary.  Kudos to the folks who put this collection together and who keep it operating. 

The next stop on our westward trek was Pendleton, Oregon.  The main purpose for the stop was to visit the Pendleton Underground and spend some time with one of Howie’s college chums, Charles, and his wife Ellen who recently moved to the area from California.  Although we aren’t “casino people” we did opt to stay at the Wildhorse Casino east of Pendleton.  As with so many casinos, they have an excellent and relatively inexpensive campground.  At night we could watch the lights of vehicles as they climbed up (or down) I-84 as it winds its way over the Blue Mountains.

Charles and Ellen hadn’t yet made the tour of the Underground so they joined us on Friday morning to check it out.  Tours are booked in advance and reservations are required; I suspect the tour groups are also limited in size.  There were about 20 of us assembled and we were led back out onto the street to begin the tour.  At one time, Pendleton had a busy and lively “parallel universe” below ground with rooms and cellars and tunnels housing all sorts of enterprises both fair and foul.  Mainly inhabited by Chinese railroad workers, the underground was home to opium dens and laundries, speakeasies and pool rooms.  This original Pendleton blanket is thought to date from the 1880s.  The four black bars in the design indicate the price – four beaver pelts --which indicates Pendleton Woolen Mill’s products have always been expensive.  Or as they say around here, spendy.

The “underground” tour does not remain under ground.  Eventually we headed upstairs to visit the boarding house/brothel known as Cozy Rooms.  It was both a legitimate boarding house and a bordello and was the last operating “sporting house” in town to close its doors.  The furnishings were considerably more lavish than those at the Oasis in Wallace.  We aren’t sure that’s at all significant but perhaps cowboys spend more lavishly than miners.  The madam had installed a small chapel where a circuit-riding preacher delivered sermons to the working girls every Sunday. 

There are not many alternative routes from one side of Oregon to the other so we followed I-84 west along the Columbia River Gorge to Troutdale, just outside Portland.   Troutdale has been a frequent stop for us.  The campground is especially nice and there’s plenty of shopping close at hand, both recreational and necessary.  We spent two days emptying tanks that need to be empty and filling tanks that need to be full before heading to Albany for four and half days of boondocking at the Northwest Area FMCA rally at the Linn County Fairgrounds.  It seems that quite a few folks we know have traveled here after the Gillette rally and so the fun continues. 

There are some unique things on the agenda for the next few weeks, including a Faux Family Reunion, so be sure to tune in again soon for an update from the highways and byways of Oregon.