Oregon - Day 25 - Eugene, Albany's carousel, Corvallis

Albany/Corvallis KOA, Albany

Wednesday, 25 May 2022

Last night's campground was almost right on the interstate, so I was quite surprised to find how quiet it was.  Sure there were cars going back and forth, but the sound was so muted I barely noticed them.  But being so close, it was easy to get on the highway this morning to head north.

today's route

The nearby City of Rogue River has a beautiful Russian Orthodox Church, St. Innocent of Irkutsk.  (I thought Irkutsk was a made-up name for the game of Risk.)  The church is large and ornate, as most of the orthodox churches are, and quite beautiful with a lot of blue on it.  I tried to find a photo online but couldn't find one I could use.  I was a little surprised to find that denomination here in Oregon, but it has apparently been here since 1998 - more than 20 years.

The sides of the highway in that area were cleared of brush and covered with grass for a distance of about 30' or so from the road back to thick trees.  I saw a deer feeding under the trees right on the edge of the grass.  I've been seeing warnings about the problems the interstate has been causing deer that persist in trying to cross it.  The state's trying to figure out how to stop them, and in some places I've seen fences along the road.  But I still have a clear memory of that deer that was trying to get away from me - maybe that was South Dakota? - that kept trying to jump a fence between the road and a cropfield, but the fence was too high (I'm sure, on purpose) and the deer kept bouncing off it.  I doubt the highway department is thinking of fences that tall along the highway, so I doubt if they'll do the job intended.

I came again to Sunny Valley, which I'd seen earlier this month, and it was again sunny, though the surrounding area was still dark because the sun wasn't up high enough (we'd left the campground by 6:45 this morning).

I came again to those 3 passes, all below 2,000', and again to those 3 6% grades.  I passed lots of farmland - cows and crops.

Along this part of the road, there was little traffic, and it was nearly empty southbound, though traffic increased substantially as I got to Eugene.

Near the airport at Myrtle Creek (a tiny affair), I saw someone kite gliding.

The radio said it was 2 years ago today that George Floyd was killed.  I think it was in an effort to deny and distract from that genuine ugliness (that, for once, nobody's tried to claim was a hoax) that far-right politicians and pundits have been talking in scathing terms about "wokeness."  I don't think I've heard this term defined but have gathered it means white people have become more aware of the injustices practiced against people of color, and that they've been going on all along but we just haven't been aware of it.  If that is the definition, then I can't see what's so wrong about it.  Why shouldn't we all be more sensitive to the realities of others and try to make things better for everyone?

I also heard on the radio that the governor of Oregon has ordered the state flag to be flown at half-staff for the rest of the week in memory of the ghastly deaths in Uvalde, TX.

A sign told me litter clean-up in that area was adopted by Friends of Mt. David.  But when I looked up the mountain, I found a Mt. David in Washington but a Mt. David Douglas in Oregon, named for the Scottish explorer David Douglas.  Maybe these "Friends" were really good friends and called the mountain by its first name?

At a highway rest area, I saw a jay without a crest, but after looking it up I'm not sure what kind it is.  I'd assumed it was a Pinyon Jay, but the bird book says they're barely in Oregon at all.  So of the choices of non-crested jays that do come here, I'm guessing it was a California Scrub Jay.

California Scrub Jay

The blue was very pretty.

I also saw a food-type truck dispensing coffee and tea, courtesy of a group called DivorceDad9.  Their sign said they're a non-profit organization for suicide prevention.  I couldn't quite see the connection, so I looked them up, and found 2 information sources.  This first one   https://www.oregonlive.com/whats-a-divorced-dad-to-do says it's presenting the problems imposed by Oregon child custody law.  And this second one   https://www.divorcedad9.com is for the group itself.  Interesting situation, though I don't know if their version of the facts is true.

At Eugene, I went off the highway to drive around the campus of the University of Oregon.  Google didn't want to route me that way, so I had to fight with it - and then fight with the Eugene traffic, but I could see it was an attractive place.  My stepson went to college here but it was so long ago I couldn't remember what I'd seen when I visited.

Farther along the road, a sign welcomed me to Linn County, "Grass Seed Capital of the World."

I started passing many very large fields thickly covered with something white.  I stopped counting at 7 fields.  Here's what I saw.

Obviously some kind of crop, but I have no idea which one.

I saw some other huge fields covered with yellow flowers.  Obviously another crop, not wildflowers, and I remember seeing that in North Dakota where they grow canola.  The internet tells me that Oregon too grows canola, but limits farmers to only 500 acres total in the state.  Apparently it was co-mingling with other crops and causing problems for nearby farmers.  But those 500 acres are in the Willamette Valley, which is where I was, so maybe that's what I was seeing.

And after the huge fields of white and yellow, I came across even huger fields of fruit orchards.  This valley is clearly where stuff grows well.

In Albany, I threaded my way through the streets to get to the historic carousel I'd seen online.  I was lucky to have arrived at a time when the carousel was open and operating, so I got a nice ride with dozens of little kids for $2.  A much better use of my money than 10 times that much for a museum, because the carousel makes me feel happy.

Here's the carousel itself:

Not one of the Looff carousels, but still gorgeous.

Here are closer views of some of the rides:

This little boy insisted on riding the giraffe,
even when his mom told him he wouldn't
go up and down.

And here are explanations for some of them:

It was a lot of fun and I'm glad I stopped by.

I took the dogs for a short walk around the area and we started to thread our way back through the town and down the road to nearby Corvallis.

I took the detour to Corvallis to see the campus of Oregon State University.  Another attractive campus, and I saw a delivery service I'd heard about but don't remember seeing before.

Those little robots were running around all over the area and were sometimes hard to dodge.  I saw pedestrians dodging them too, so it wasn't just cars.  But they were clearly popular because I saw so many running around.  I found an article in the college's newspaper when the gizmos were first introduced.   https://today.oregonstate.edu/robots-provide-food-delivery-corvallis-campus

And in the food line, I also noticed a whole area with many Vietnamese restaurants.

From there I crossed the Willamette River, passed a billboard that read: "Romaine Calm and Carrot On," and came to tonight's campground.  Today's drive was only a little more than 200 miles, but I was pretty tired and glad to stop.