Silver Falls State Park, 7/15/07

This is a tough decision to make, but I’m going to just go for it and say today has been my favorite day so far. The drive through Mt. Hood River Valley and around Mt. Hood was spectacular. We went over several passes and as we rounded each corner we got a different, close-up perspective of Mt. Hood. Breathtaking. I didn’t realize that the route we had chosen would bring us so close to the base of the mountain. Once we began the descent down – heading to the Portland side of the mountain – the towns were geared toward alpine skiing & mountain biking, with lots of lodges, inns and cafes. Before reaching Portland we headed south and traveled in the foothills through miles and miles of Christmas tree and berry farms. (I believe this was the Oregon Trail route). Yes, we did stop to purchase a pint of Marionberries, continuing our quest of eating our way through Oregon. (The stand was very sweet, completely on the honor system, $2 for a pint.). I guess what I loved so much about today was that we visited so many different environments in a relatively short time – the orchards of Mt. Hood Valley, the evergreen forest and alpine area of Mt. Hood, the rolling foothills of eastern Willamette Valley and back into the thick wooded area of Oregon rain forests. I really enjoy being in the wooded area again and still can’t get over all the different varieties – and acres of Christmas trees that are grown here. I wonder how many Christmas Trees Oregon does provide to the USA?! We stopped at the town of Silverton at noonish and decided to eat a pancake breakfast. (Best pancakes we’ve ever had, seriously. Okay, maybe munching on yogurt and blueberries most of the other mornings got me in the mood for a good ol’ Sunday morning breakfast. And no, the brunch cruise didn’t count.) We also sat outside of the Red Thai Restaurant and pirated their wireless network to upload yesterday’s blog. Our usual modis operandi – pulling into a town and seeing what internet we can piggyback on;-) A short drive down the road, perhaps 20 miles, is Silver Falls State Park, our day’s destination. It is the largest State Park in Oregon and has more than 9,000 acres of spectacular scenery. It is known for it’s 10 (yes ten!) waterfalls. We biked and hiked to two of them. You can actually do a hike to all ten falls, but we were having so much fun biking through the paved park paths that we only stopped and visited a couple. South Falls was really fun because you could walk completely behind the falls. This state park is great because like Fort Stevens it has miles of paved biking paths. The bike trails wound through second-growth stands of Douglas-fir and western hemlock with lots of sword fern, Oregon grape and salal in a really gorgeous, lush rainforest. We’ve been having fun stretching our legs today. We never made it to any wineries, as we were too eager to be outside and play. However, as we are down to our last (half!) glass of zin my bet is that manana will bring a trip through the covered bridges and numerous wineries of Willamette Valley. Okay -off to the ranger campfire talk on “Waterfalls: A window into time.”