Cow Creek Tour Route

Scrabble Queen was surfing the net at Travel Oregon dot Com and came upon this great scenic drive.

"The Cow Creek Tour Route is a refreshing break from the steady highway pace; this 45-mile detour wanders with Cow Creek as it dips through the Coast mountain range. The route is spread with quaint farms and ranches, stately forests, massive rock outcroppings, and spring waterfalls. Depending on the season, you can absorb the plethora of wildflowers or the bright reds and yellows of autumn."

So off we went north on I5 and took off at the Riddle exit 103 and headed west.


I was a little slow getting this picture of a turtle on a rock. When I first walked down this trail to the river after pulling over the Musemobile. At first there were four turtles three that too fast for ol' slow poke.

The Cow creek is beautiful here. Very clear with a touch of tannin gold.


There were shallow turbulent waters and deep smooth sections as well.

In some places even the rocks were smooth.


Further along we came to a sign letting us know these were Salmon Spawning Beds. Scrabble Queen even saw one (she thinks) near the sign. She may even have seen a bear laying on a rock at creek's edge.

All I saw was this bumble bee on a thistle.


All along the creek were bridges some for cars and others for trains.

With all the trees in the background the water looked green from the scattered light as opposed to blue that I've gotten with clear sky above.


No, this tree is not painted it's a Pacific Madrone or sometimes called a Strawberry Tree. The bark is a greyish brown but when it sheds it's a beautiful smooth red. The leaves look a lot like a Rhododendron and it is a distant cousin of the same family (Heath) of vegetation.

I thought I'd thrown in a picture of the Musemobile in hopes Winnebago will sponsor a cross country venture (hint) but I think they never surfed my site to know I've been doing this a few years.

So here is the first railroad bridge. There is a guy in the lower left of the picture with a black sleeveless shirt who was (I think) panning for gold with some kind of pump gadget.

I loved this railroad bridge and tunnel a few miles further along the creek. It was built in 1905.

So I walked the tracks.

Overlooking the river I got a good shot of the grass we has seen all along in the creek.

I even went into the tunnel and looked back at the bridge.


It was spooky in the tunnel and I took this picture more to show the water dripping. I couldn't tell what the paper was under the drip until I downloaded the picture on my PC. Talk about spooky, it was a Eugene Register Guard and blowing it up it was from October 20, 2006 - MY BIRTHDAY. Yikes and that was the day Super Putter got a Hole-In-One on the 5th hole at Middlefield Golf course. Double Yikes!!!!


I set the camera on the ground for an available light picture and could see the light at the end of the tunnel.


Fortunately it wasn't a train but I did make a special spooky picture of the tunnel for any horror movie fans who read this blog.


Then there was the proverbial car on the tracks a little further down the road.

There was a curious sign about pioneer graves that no one knows where the graves are. I think I'll put up a "Martian Landing Zone" sign at my house and charge admission to the back yard. If anyone asks I tell them "I don't know where the landing zone really is only that is somewhere around here."


Another Pacific Madrone stand of trees, just beautiful.


~Free Range Turkeys~ No Bull they really are free range turkeys.


I was wrong there is Bull almost in the same range as the turkeys.

Scrabble Score - Scrabble Queen 397 ~ The humbled Contender 375

Quote of the Day -

"Pacific madrone's fruit is as "a globose, orange, semi-fleshy, glandular-coated drupaceous berry one-third to one-half inch long." Once fermented, it will cause inebriation in the birds which eat it."~ Richard J. Preston, Jr. from an article in "North American Trees"