Weekend of Waterfalls

Hello friends and followers! I hope you all had a good Memorial Day weekend, whatever it means to you. For many here in the USA it is a time of outdoor fun and food, for many a time of reflection and honoring fallen loved ones, and for others a mix of the two. I’d like to give a quick update and share some fun I had this weekend. I’m trying to get better at sharing about my travels more often in travel article styled posts. This week I also plan to write about some amazing women’s journeys. If I keep on schedule, this Saturday will be my 100th post, just in time to celebrate the 100th year of something awesome! Stay tuned!

Before I share about some fun I had this weekend, I want to pause and honor the innocent lives lost in the two recent mass shootings, one at a grocery store that appears to be racially motivated, and the other at an elementary school where the motive is as yet unknown. Please join me in sending a prayer for comfort for the loved ones of those lost. I’m sure that this Memorial Day was extra difficult for them.

And a quick update: my new “civilian” job is going well. I’m working in an office to support account managers for employee benefits for clients including nonprofits, governmental and educational agencies, and businesses. My coworkers are all great, and my favorite part so far is helping the account managers put together publications for clients to send to their employees.

This Memorial Day weekend, I was supposed to go camping and rafting on the Deschutes River with my Central Oregon friends. But Oregon weather hijacked those plans. So instead I got to revisit some favorite places with people I love.

On Saturday, we went to Silver Falls State Park. Yes, it was raining, but that’s actually a great time to go there. Evidently we weren’t the only ones to think that, because there were a fair number of brave souls there, most of whom were wearing plastic ponchos. But it was still way quieter than sunny summer days that draw crowds. We decided not to hike the whole loop trail but just see the highlights and warm up in-between them. It was my boyfriend’s first time there, and he was awed by the scale of South Falls. We ate lunch, played cards, and warmed up by a fire in the lodge. Then we drove to North Falls and hiked the epic stone stairs down to the viewpoint. We took in the view of the falling water and rain from a bench in the giant cavern behind the falls.

After that, we drove to the picturesque town of Mt. Angel. It has been structured and decorated to look like a German town. We attended the Vespers service at the Abbey church where we sang along with monks. Then we ate dinner at the newly reopened Glockenspiel restaurant. The chicken schnitzel was delicious! We wandered around downtown a bit, and then headed south to come home. But we stopped in Salem to top off our German-themed evening with cake and coffee at the Konditerei. They’ve revamped a bit, and I swear it tasted better than it ever did when I lived in Salem!

Yesterday (Sunday) I stayed mostly home and got some things done that I needed to. My church service is in the evening, and after it everyone went to an ice cream shop, despite the cold outside. Worth it!

Today I got to take my boyfriend’s family to Sweet Creek Falls trail (Homestead Trailhead) for their first time there. Like the Silver Falls State Park’s “Trail of 10 Falls,” this trail also has 10+ waterfalls. They are much smaller in stature than at Silver Falls, but so is the trail, making it a family friendly treat. The creek itself is beautiful even between the waterfalls, and fort-like stumps, rocky shallows to splash in, and cliff-hugging catwalks provide lots of fun for kids. The biggest waterfall is the official Sweet Creek Falls at the farthest point on the trail. You can’t see the whole thing at once but can hike a steep trail to the upper viewpoint. It rained on us as we hiked back to the trailhead, so we ate our picnic lunch in the car and headed back. We stopped at the Gingerbread Village restaurant to buy baked treats (gingerbread cookie people, gingerbread cake, and carrot cake with like an inch of cream cheese frosting) and use the bathrooms. There were some fun photo ops set up outside, and we visited the giant pig out back as well. The restaurant was overwhelmed with guests who stopped to eat on their way home from a weekend at the coast, so I’m glad we didn’t get a table and eat there.

All in all, it was a lovely weekend. I may add some photos eventually, but as I said earlier, I’m trying to get better at writing more often, so I’m not going to wait until I download pictures from my phone to my laptop. I’m going to try to write a post a day this week, as part of my countdown to 100 posts and 100 years of something I love. Hint: one of the places I went this weekend is part of that celebration. Can you figure out what it is?