Testing Print Version Windows 7

---

What a great time we had with Adventure Tours as our motor coach traveled through Marion County, Oregon June 26-28, 2014! Thirty-two of us were on our way to the 80-acre Oregon Garden in Silverton, 42 miles south of Portland on Highway 213. This is Willamette Valley fruit and vineyard country.

---

Around noon, on our four-hour drive from Walla Walla to Silverton, we stopped to ride a train through the Hood River Valley. Over 15,000 acres of pear, cherry, and apple trees surround Mt. Hood. At 11,000 feet, the snow-covered mountain glistened in the sunshine. It seemed close enough to touch!

---

_________________________________

_________________________________



----------



____________

I had lunch in the dining car with two new friends, Karen and Margie. We were served Chicken Salad Wraps, tender asparagus, a choice of chocolate cake or cherry cheesecake with a free beverage. As 2 o'clock, the train stopped for an hour in the village of Parkdale at the end of the line. While the engine was switched and refueled, we followed the boardwalk to the museum, gift shops, and market. It was a treat to buy fresh blueberries, cherries, and apples to eat on the ride back to Hood River.

It is a two-hour drive from Hood River to the Oregon Garden. We arrived at the resort around 5 o'clock, just in time for the three of us to change clothes and find the restaurant. A gourmet dinner was shrimp scamp, sirloin steak, or pork shish kabob was served as the sun dipped behind the distant hills. After enjoying. After enjoying a dish of pecan ice cream, I walked to my room--one of 136 rooms in cabins with private decks that overlook the gardens.

The next morning,we took a half-hour tour around the gardens, past flowering hybrids, topiaries, and northwest native plants. Then it was time for lunch, followed by a tour of Silverton, a mill town that flourished in the mid-1800s. Today Silverton, with a population of 10,000, is known for 20 murals that commemorate its history.

Stacy, a walk-on guide, pointed out the mural of Homer Davenport, a friend of President Teddy Roosevelt, who is honored as the first person to bring Arabian horses to America in 1906. Norman Rockwell's grandson commissioned a mural called "The Four Freedoms--Religion, Speech, Want, and Fear" to honor his grandfather in 1990. Astronaut Donald Pettit grew up in Silverton and studied chemical engineering. Selected by NASA to live on the International Space Station Soyus in 2012, he logged in a total of 370 days in space. Pettit's mural depicts his inventions and walks in space, as well as a portrait of his parents.

Our bus tour included the Willamette Pie and Fruit Company located in the countryside near Silverton. Thousands of pies are made here and shipped to West Coast markets. The most requested pie is Marion berry. In fact, the county is named after the popular fruit. We found blackberry, cherry, apple, and blueberry pies in the freezer, as well as cobblers, crisps, and muffins. Ice cream is available by the quart and gallon, and there is an endless cup of free coffee!

Our final stop just outside Silverton was the Gallon House covered bridge, one of a dozen wooden bridges in the area. During prohibition in the early 1900s, the bridge was a meeting place for the "thirsty" to buy a jug or jar of home-made liquor. A more acceptable use for covered bridges is to protect the trusses from the weather.

As we returned to Oregon Garden Resort, we passed brightly-blooming fields of flowers raised only for seed. Some of the blossoms are experiments. If they flourished here, you would be able to buy the seeds at a market next spring.

Too soon, it was time for us to leave the fields and farms of the Willamette Valley. I will miss the horses, deer, lamas, goats, and cattle grazing peacefully. There is so much to see and do, eat and drink in the Valley, it is known as Oregon's version of Tuscany! Cheers!--Shirley Ruble

---

Comments

[Test]

Testing
Can you spam this msg?