After a good night's sleep, we went out on the back porch:
...where we met the other guests, Terri and George Cabrera:
...from Montgomery, Alabama. She's a doctor, and he's a retired banker, now working as a minister. They were a delightful couple, and we enjoyed talking to them every morning at breakfast.
Beverly, as it turned out, is also a doctor - who also cooks wonderful breakfasts. And Mark, in addition to running the bed and breakfast, also does Bev's billing, and has a couple of other part time jobs.
After breakfast, we went off to be tourists. The first thing we did was to drive right around the corner from the Clackamas House, to see the Pioneer Church:
...and Baker Cabin:
...a couple of restored buildings from the 1800's. When we pulled into the parking lot, the first thing we saw was this sign:
We dialed the number and entered the code, and were treated to a recording of an actress playing the part of a woman who was the common law wife of Mr. Baker, who built the cabin, telling the story of how they came out here from Illinois. In the next couple of days, we saw several of these Tele-Tales signs.
A few more pictures from the Baker Cabin:
Stone chimney
Stairs to the loft
Butter churn
"Wow," I hear you say, "that's a BIG butter churn!" Apparently, the Bakers ran a commercial dairy at one time of their lives.
Our next stop was in Oregon City (w) , on the banks of the Willamette River (w) (pronounced will-AM-et, not WILL-a-met, as I also learned to my chagrin), where we visited the End Of The Oregon Trail Interpretive Center, a museum which, as its name implies, is located at the end of the Oregon Trail (w) :
This museum contains exhibits and displays relating to Oregon history, as well as living history lectures and demonstrations given by costumed employees. This gentleman...
...gave an interesting talk on frontier medicine. He also very kindly gave Terry a hands-on look at a collection of artifacts representing items pioneers might have stocked up on for their journey west.
We also watched a multimedia presentation about the westward migration along the Oregon Trail, featuring stories of several actual pioneers. The presentation had an interesting twist. They took old photographs of the pioneers, and found actors who resembled them. They then filmed the actors in various scenes relating to their journey west. The twist was that the first shot of the film exactly mimicked the old photograph. Then during the show, they'd show the photograph, then switch to the film, with the result that the photograph appeared to "come to life." Very slick.
Another section of the museum featured extracts from pioneer women's diaries and letters. One told a rather unsettling story. It seems that a wagon train was met by some Indians, who offered to trade 20 horses for the daughter of one of the settlers. The father, a man named Steve, thinking the whole thing to be a joke, said "Okay, she's yours." Well, of course, the Indians showed up the next day with 20 horses, and tried to take the girl. Steve tried to explain that it was all a joke. The Indians, alas, weren't laughing, and attacked the wagon train. The settlers were able to fight off the Indians, but Steve was banished from the party. One wonders whatever happened to poor Steve.
Map of the Oregon Trail
After we left the museum, we went and had lunch at the Highland Stillhouse Pub:
...a reasonably authentic British style pub. I then went across the street to look at a statue of John McCloughlin (w) (mc-LOCK-lin, not mc-LOFF-lin, as I learned...), whose general store in Oregon City was famous as the last stop on the Oregon Trail:
I also took time to read (and photograph) these history lessons:
...from a viewpoint on the shores of the Willamette River:
...the attractiveness of which was lessened considerably, in my view, by all the industrial buildup.
The guidebooks all mention Willamette Falls, which should have been visible from where I was standing. But for the life of me, I couldn't see them. I finally found out that they were right there in front of me all along - I just didn't recognize them for what they were. Here's a picture:
As you can see from the picture (I hope) the falls are a horseshoe shape in the middle of river. Again, in my view, the effect was greatly lessened by what appears to be a retaining wall built all around the falls. Sigh. God did such a great job of designing the world... why are we constantly trying to improve on the original?
Another interesting thing about Oregon City. Part of the town is on the shore of the river, but the rest of the town is on a bluff overlooking the river. In 1915, they built this elevator:
...as a way of getting from the lower town to the upper town.
We then drove into downtown Portland (w) , about a half hour's drive, to the International Rose Test Garden (w) . This is a large rose garden with thousands of roses, of hundreds of varieties. It's called a "test" garden because new types of roses from around the world are sent here to be tested for color, fragrance, disease resistance, etc. Here are some pictures:
The garden also features an interesting sculpture/fountain:
...and a very nice amphitheater:
...where they have classical music concerts.
Once a year Portland has a Rose Festival (w) , and a local high school girl is chosen as Rose Queen. The garden has a brick walkway with a plaque for each of the queens:
...from the first queen:
...to the current queen:
On the drive into downtown, I had spotted something that caught my interest. It was one of those sky rides, in which a gondola suspended from overhead wires carries passengers through the air. I thought at first that it was a tourist attraction, but when I finally found the landing station, tucked away in an out-of-the-way spot near the riverfront, I discovered that the Portland Aerial Tram (w) was actually built for employees of the Oregon Health & Science University (w) , simply as a way to get from the lower campus, on the riverfront, to the upper campus, on top of a hill. I asked about it, and was told that although it was mostly used by OHSU employees, it was also used by other commuters, and that about 20% of riders are tourists like us. Here are pictures:
The lower landing station
Machinery
One of the pylons
Views from the tram
The upper landing station
Just before boarding the tram, I looked over the fence and was amused to notice, nestled in the grass below the aerial cables, this little menagerie:
So after a heavy day of touristing, we drove back to Clackamas, and had dinner at:
The Stone Cliff Inn
...a very nice restaurant around the corner from the Clackamas River House. Mark and Bev give everyone who stays two or more nights a $25 gift card to the restaurant.