Treks and Adventures
Our goal wad to explore the Gnome Trail but first we had to get there by walking done the Burnt Bridge Creek Greenway Trail. We started at the far West end of trail and walked about a half mile to the gnomes. The weather lived up to the forecast and we had a very wet day. We found the Gnome Trail we decorate with fanciful objects.
After our walk was ended early on account of a lot of rain we did an early lunch at Say Ciao.
Tom has led a downtown Christmas walk for many years though the Mazama Rambles. This year a number of us got to gather to do a private walk with Tom. Walk feature visiting hotels and other venues to see there Christmas decoration. We had 25 people show up for the walk.
Lori, Jeanette, Sylvia and I returned to Chehalem Ridge Nature Park for another chilly hike. About a 5.5 mile hike. Afterwards we went to the new Backwoods Brewing in Hillsdale for lunch.
This time Lori, Jeanette and I were out for a road trip to explore some spots in the Willamette Valley. Lori wanted to go to show us Bauman Farms and have lunch at Clancy’s. I came up with a couple of more places to fill out our trip. The planned was to go to Hughes Water Gardens, Bauman Farms, Church or the Holley Ascension, Samuel Brown House, Powerland Heritage Park and Clancy’s. Over lunch Lori decide she wanted to show us one more spot so we went to Ales Garden. It pays to be flexible on these outings.
A different kind of hike. Today was the official dedication of the new Mitchell Point Tunnel, part of the Historic Columbia River Highway restoration. To make it more interesting I decided I would hike part of the finished and still in progress sections of the highway to the tunnel. I started at Starvation Creek State park to avoid the crowds at Viento State Park the official parking spot. I was surprise to run into Ted from the Rambles who had the same idea. Ted brought his bike and hoofed it over to Mitchell Point. The dedication had some nice trapping with dignitaries like congressman Peter DeFazio who helped get federal funding for the project. After the waiting and speeches we all gathered to enter the tunnel after the ribbon was cut. The most interesting part was feeling the change of mood as this mass moved into the tunnel from daylight and into total darkness a sense of panic. We all just stumbled along until we go light from the first window. After going through and back on the tunnel it was time to hike back to my car. Total walking distances out and back 10.5 miles.
