Day Drive on Hwy. 126 from Eugene, OR.

                                   Monday 7/9/2012

After getting our Nest across the street to the Guaranty Service Center, we took off for a day drive along the McKenzie River. We passed several vineyards.

We took Hwy. 126 which runs along the river. Along our drive we came to this covered bridge. Oregon has 51 covered bridges. The bridges were built, starting in 1850's from the abundant Douglas Firs found in this area. If the bridges were covered they would last 80 years, verse 9 years uncovered.

The Goodpasture Bridge is the second longest covered bridge in Oregon. It is also one of the most photographed covered bridge in Oregon.

 There are ten Gothic style louvered windows on each side. The windows were built to allow light into the long covered structure so drivers could see oncoming traffic. 

During the Christmas season, the bridge is hung with decorations, attracting many winter visitors

The McKenzie River water is very clean and clear.

Goodpasture Bridge as we head east on Hwy. 126.

We found a sign directing us off of Hwy. 126 to the Cougar Reservoir.

A Temperature Control Tower was built on the Cougar Reservoir to produce warmer water below the dam.

Cougar Dam on the reservoir side.

Cougar Dam on the top end of the other side.

Looking down the dam.

Looking out and down from the Cougar Dam. The Chinook Salmon production has decrease since the construction of the dam in 1963. The Temperature Control Tower routes warmer water to the base of the dam at the river below, which encourages salmon up to the dam. At the base of the dam a fish collection facility has been. Once the fish are sorted and collected they are trucked above the dam for spawning.

We got back to Hwy. 126 and continued east for a while, until we came to this sign. We turned left onto Hwy 242 for 6 1/2 miles on the McKenzie Pass-Santiam Pass Scenic Byway.

The Willamette National Forest

We stopped at the Proxy Falls Trailhead for a hike.

We got in free with our Interagency Pass.

The trail is a 1 and 1/4 mile loop trail.

It takes you through dense forest and

 lava bed.

We had Mallery with us. She enjoyed the shade and helped her mom by doing some walking on her own.

Proxy Falls is much more impressive than in these pictures.

It has a Vail of 226 feet in two streams.

There is a trail to the base of the falls which looked very steep. Because we had Mallery, we decided to skip the hike down. Proxy Falls is the most photographed falls in Oregon and if you have seen pictures of waterfalls in a calender, it could have been Proxy Falls as it is the most photogenic waterfall in the entire country.

As we started to finish the loop trail, we heard another waterfall. We took another trail and found this waterfall. It was hard to photograph, because there was so may trees and bushes in front of it.

At the base of the fall was this large pond. We could not find where the water was left.

I had climbed over trying to get a better shot of the waterfall, but no such luck. I took a picture of Joe and the pond instead.

Shooting a picture across the pond. We decided there must be an underground stream that empties the waterfall and pond.

We headed back to the car.

The forest had a blanket of  thick moss on this part of the trail. Once back at the car we headed back. We wanted to continue the  McKenzie Pass-Santiam Pass Scenic Byway, but it was getting late and the last episode of the Bachelorette was on that night. In order to see the shows, we had to be home by 5PM. Mid westerns have it great, because shows start at just the right time. When we are on the east coast, you end up staying up late to view network prime time shows.

On the way home, Joe took this picture of the business, "River Run Gallery", that had a lot of strange metal objects out front.  It looked like they have some neat garden art, but no sense stopping, it wouldn't fit anywhere in our rig!