Waysides along Highway 138

 The first wayside was the Narrows Wayside and it had had a sweet and simple memorial...

 ... next to the fast moving waters of the Umpqua river...

 ... and the graceful wild flowers. Su head of the library here in Creswell, and my plant identification expert said this: "It's a bachelor's button, centaurea cyana, and it's a plant introduced here from Eurasia."

 

 I did venture down a bank to the river's shore...

 ... to see crystalline clear water flowing over the shallows.

 On the way back up the bank I stopped for more flowers...

 ...and more of that same type of  flower in other colors...

 ... including this beautiful white variety with lavender accents and

 ... nearby was a berry looking pod.

 Further up the road I stopped for a picture of a steep rock wall that is very typical of the area...

 ...and more of the white water spots...

 ...as well as the deeper sections of calmer water.

 I wonder why, not just my eye, my eye is so drawn to the angry white water sections with their roaring thunder than those still water sections. Perhaps it's that I'm drawn to the action/activity/power that gives the river life beyond three dimensions.

 In gardens these may be called weeds but to my eye they are beautiful delicate flowers...

 ... that form complex shapes like wound yellow wire ...

 ... or like birds on the branches of bare limbs.

Amazing and it leaks, 

"A 12-foot diameter redwood-stave flowline (pipeline) is part of the Toketee development of the North Umpqua Hydrolectric Project."

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"Completed in December of 1949 (when I was 6 years old) , the Toketee development was the first component of the Project to be built. The Toketee facility begins at the earth-fill dam less than a mile upstream of Toketee Falls. The reservoir behind the dam is approximately 102 acres. Water enters an intake structure at the dam and then runs through the wood-stave flowline for 1,500 feet where it then transitions to concrete just before entering a tunnel through Deer Leap Rock. the water powers three generator turbines that have a capacity of 45 megawatts of electricity or enough energy for approximately 22,500 homes"

 Toketee falls is one of the most interesting falls I've seen and is a double fall waterfall. This is a picture of the falls on the information board at the trail head but we do plan to return and walk to the falls.

On the way home we took the road less traveled, a BLM road that goes up 3,500 feet then descends into Culp Creek just east of Cottage grove and while possible time wise about the same as Highway 138, was much shorter and provided this beautiful view.

No Scrabble for awhile

Quote of the Day ~

Can we ever forget 9/11 and can we afford to not learn from that tragic day

"If blood will flow when flesh and steel are one
Drying in the color of the evening sun
Tomorrow's rain will wash the stains away
But something in our minds will always stay
Perhaps this final act was meant
To clinch a lifetime's argument
That nothing comes from violence and nothing ever could
For all those born beneath an angry star
Lest we forget how fragile we are." ~ Sting from the song Fragile