Bridges of Lane County

We're closing out week 2 of our visit to the service center and hopefully will be on the road this morning. Stopping here has been one of the best decisions we could have made with the level sites including power and water and an extremely competent, highly trained staff to help and take care of our new home. They have corrected all of the problems we noticed and even more so, some that they knew could be potential problems down the road. To top it off, they were just plain fun to work with.

This has not been all just sitting around waiting for the coach to be worked on either. We had one period of down time last weekend when parts were enroute and the staff was off. In our case it was a trip back to the coast to enjoy the cooler sea breezes and of course the awesome fresh seafood.

To break up the walks on the beach and tours of the town we decided to head a short ways inland to explore some of Oregon's 80 year old covered bridges. Just getting to them was an adventure; driving through narrow country lanes shrouded in trees, passing small farms and cottages that were surely dating back to the late 1800's. The weather in Oregon encourages fast vegetation growth and before you know it can cover a stationary object in green.

The vegetation attracts wildlife like this velvet covered little buck who owned the road. In Lane county where we're staying there are 20 covered bridges and we were fortunate to be able to visit 3 in less than 20 miles.

Our first was Deadwood Creek which was built on a bit of a curving road so the roadbed is slanted for traffic safety. Quite an accomplishment considering the whole thing is wood. Beams of old growth timber squared to 14 inches by 14 inches and running the full length of the bridge, well over 60 feet worth. Looking carefully you can see the squaring cuts that were all done by hand. Simply amazing.

The second bridge was the Nelson Mountain or Lake Creek bridge built in 1928. The beams were just a little smaller 12” by 12” and 79 feet long. Mortise and tenon joints that were still solid and tight speak highly of the skills of the folks who built this bridge.

11 miles on some old logging roads took us over Nelson Mountain to the third bridge, the last of our tour and unfortunately the saddest. Located at the turn-off to Whittaker Creek park is the Wild Cat bridge crossing Wildcat creek.

This was the oldest we visited having been built in 1925 and the construction was of the same quality and grand scale as the other two. The sad part however was since this bridge is close to a popular “partying park” it has provided some inconsiderate idiots a canvas to display their ignorance of exactly what they are defacing.

As I mentioned, we will probably be on the road later today to Bend, Oregon to visit the Thousand Trails Sunriver campgound. This is a little ways north of Crater Lake which we visited last year so this year we'll explore the places we missed and perhaps brave the south rim of the crater.

Or we'll sleep. The agenda is open.