Home Again

Good morning, my friends. Happily, I'm sitting at my desk at home to write this post. How are y'all doing? It's been a while since we've spoken while stationary. Feels weird, doesn't it?

So lemme tell you about the drive home, and then I'll tell you what's going to happen next. We left Klamath Falls under sunny skies. The road out of Klamath Falls runs alongside Upper Klamath Lake. It's the largest body of fresh water by surface area in Oregon. It is approximately 25 miles (40 km) long and 8 miles (13 km) wide.

There aren't many pictures of our drive home because it looked like this for at least three-fourths of the way. Nothing but a tunnel of trees.

The view opened up some as we approached Interstate 5. Below is Lowell Bridge, a covered bridge in Lowell, Oregon. The original bridge was built in 1907. The current bridge was built in 1945. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

Before the Lowell Bridge was constructed, pioneer Amos Hyland settled on the Middle Fork of the Willamette River in 1874, and established the town of Lowell, which he named after his birthplace of Lowell, Maine. The founding of the town coincided with construction of a railroad through the settlement. At the site of the current bridge, Hyland operated a ferry across the river. The ferry operated until 1907, when a bridge was built.

An accident occurred in 1945 when a truck caused major damage to the bridge. It was replaced by the current bridge, which is the widest covered bridge in Oregon. In 1953, in preparation for the flooding expected to be caused by the completion of Dexter Dam in two years, the entire bridge was raised 6 feet (1.8 m), and the floor replaced. Dexter Dam inundated the area creating Dexter Reservoir when it was completed in 1955. 

I might have gotten a better picture of it except for that SUV photobombing me. (Shakes fist.) How dare they drive on a public road while I'm trying to take a picture? Honestly...some people. 

No worries. I found another picture in the public domain.

(Image credit: "Lowell Bridge" by Larry Myhre is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.)

This is Dexter Reservoir. We'd passed Dexter Dam a few miles earlier, but I wasn't able to get a picture.

We stopped at a rest area just north of Eugene, Oregon. There, I saw these pretties. These are rosehips.

Here's a domesticated rose. 

This is a wild rose sticking its flower out from beneath some other plant.

These are the rosehips it produces. They're the size of cherry tomatoes.

We saw a few barns as we headed north toward home.

Finally, after several hours and many miles, we arrived at the Three Cats Ranch around 3:15 p.m. Sadie was so fast out of the door, she didn't even wait for the step to come down.

From there, she was a blur for the next hour or so.

Smitty headed straight for some of that Oregon weed.

Things don't look much different from when we left them. There were about a half dozen ripe cherry tomatoes.

The geraniums have the most flowers they've had since I planted them. It makes me wonder what happened to the squirrels.

The dahlias haven't made much progress since before we left, although this Checkers dahlia grew very tall. Even though I have it staked, one cluster of flowers grew too tall and fell over, breaking its stem. It must have just happened because the two flowers I saw there still appeared fresh. I stuck them in some water, and we'll enjoy them for the next several days.

So now begins the task of unpacking. I should be able to get it finished today. For a short trip, we didn't take much. We have food to feed us for a couple more days, but we're going to need to get to the grocery store fairly quickly if we want to continue eating.

For now, I'm looking forward to getting back into a regular routine. There wasn't much time for slow-stitching while we were on the road. I have the 12th kitten this far. 

Also, I checked my pink floss and didn't find any more of the pink I ran out of. Fortunately, I was able to purchase a single skein on Amazon, and so I should have sometime next week. Probably, I paid a little more on Amazon, but if it saves me from having to go to Joann, it's worth a few extra pennies.

Before I go, I have just one Q&A from earlier in the trip. My friend, Karen, was referring to our first stop in LaGrande, Oregon, when she asked this question:

Q: How hot is the water in the canal? Surprised birds and lily pads do so well there.

A: I'm not sure the exact temperature, but if this sign is any indication, it's too hot for swimming.

So I'm going to take a day or two off from blogging while we unpack and get back to what passes for normal around here. I hope you enjoyed the trip. We'll chat again in a day or two. Happy Fall, everyone. It'll be here in just a few days.