Rex and Nancy's Travels - "ALL WHO WANDER ARE NOT LOST" - JRR Tolkein

It started raining Monday night and continued to rain off and on all morning Tuesday.   We drove 4 miles north to the town of Mt. Angel.   We had a great Bavarian lunch at the Glockenspiel Restaurant.   After lunch we went outside to watch the Glockenspiel performance.   At 1 pm the doors opened and the performance started.   The full-size hand carved wooden figures tell the history of Mt. Angel accompanied by music to match the theme of the figure. It started with a Kalapuya brave, whose people lived in this area and climbed the butte east of town to pray to the Great Spirit.   Next were Robert and Katrina Zollner, German Catholic settlers who homesteaded 220 acres in this area in 1867. Mathias Butsch, the “father of Mt. Angel” and one of the early leaders of the community came next.   He brought the Benedictine Monks to Mt. Angel.   Next was Prior Adelhelm Odermatt who came from Switzerland and established the Benedictine Monastery in 1882.   He suggested the name,

We left Ft. Stevens State Park Saturday morning and headed southeast over the Coast Range to Silverton, OR where we are staying at the Silver Spur RV Park.   The sun was shining when we got here so we opened up all the windows to get the 5 th wheel dried out.   We really liked the coast but are ready for some dryer and warmer weather. Sunday morning the park had a breakfast for its guests – pancakes with strawberries and bacon.   It is strawberry season here and the breakfast was great.   We spent the morning relaxing and after lunch went to The Oregon Garden.   The Oregon Association of Nurseries developed this botanical garden in the late 1990’s.   There are more than 20 specialty gardens, a visitor center, café and gift shop.   We spent the afternoon walking around and enjoying the different gardens.   This is the Pet Garden where they have information on how to make your yard and garden pet friendly. The water garden has its own Loch Ness Monster. This iris is the mo

It rained during the night but Friday morning the sun was shining once again.   We drove back south to the Cannon Beach area to see the Tillamook Rock Lighthouse.   When we were there last week it was too overcast and rainy to get a picture of the lighthouse.   Today was clear and sunshiny and we got a great picture.   We had to hike a short distance to an overlook to see the lighthouse. The beach along the way was beautiful. Tillamook Rock Lighthouse sits 1.2 miles off Tillamook Head and stands 133 feet above sea level with a 62 ft high tower.   Built in 1881 it was called “Terrible Tilly” because of its exposure to storm waves.   This lighthouse is privately owned and was once used as a columbarium, a storage place for ashes of the deceased.   It is currently not being used and looks in need of some TLC. We have now seen all 9 of the Oregon state lighthouses, 2 in California and 2 in Washington.   We found we really liked seeing the lighthouses, touring the ones we could an

Thursday was another nice with the sun shining.   We crossed the Columbia River on the Astoria-Megler Bridge.   The bridge is 4.1 miles long and stretches from Astoria, OR to Point Ellice, WA.   When opened in 1966 the bridge completed U.S. 101 as an unbroken link between the Canadian and Mexican borders.   The day the bridge opened to traffic the ferry service across the river stopped. We stopped at Fort Columbia State Park Heritage Site.   Fort Columbia was constructed between 1896 and 1904 to support Fort Stevens and Fort Canby in defense of the Columbia River.   In 1945 the U.S. military declared the fort surplus and transferred it into the custody of the state of Washington.   It is a lot smaller than Fort Stevens but all of the buildings are still standing and are in good shape. Battery Murphy is the main battery at the fort. We drove on to Cape Disappointment State Park.   In 1788, British fur trader John Meares named the area Cape Disappointment after his i

Today is the first day of summer and our second beautiful sunny day in a row – Yeah!   The sun shone all day today and it got into the mid 60’s.   We visited Fort Clatsop which is part of the Lewis and Clark National and State Historical Park.   The Historical Park consists of 12 individual areas around the mouth of the Columbia River and 40 miles along the Pacific Coast that mark the success of key parts of the Corps of Discovery’s mission.   Fort Clatsop is where Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1805-06 at the end of their 4,000-mile trek across the newly acquired Louisiana Territory.   There is a replica of Fort Clatsop as it looked that winter. We watched a living history program on old muskets.   They described how the musket worked and then fired one. We also took a short nature hike with a ranger who talked about the plants and trees in the area. On the way back to our camp site for lunch we saw a bear in the campground and were lucky to get a pictur