Uh oh 35 pictures. The quaint little town of Cottage Grove and more

This blog post starts with Sunday.  We stayed home for the morning catching up on a few things.  Well, Richard did somethings-his blog probably mentions some technical things.  In the afternoon we went to his sister, Carole's, house to visit and share a meal.  They live out in the country on a hill.  I took a little walk around their house and this is what I found.  The first picture is of a green stone that Peter, Carole's husband, put in a home made waterfall area.  The next is just me playing with the camera.  I liked the contrast of the pine cones against the burgundy leaves.  I did not do any changing on this shot in Photo.

 Below is the view from the Carole and Peter's house. 

 The next interesting subject I found was this spider.  I took many pictures of it, only 2 made this post.  I did try various angles and options on the iPhone camera.  I wanted to get a picture that showed the web clearly.  Black and white just made the spider blurry.  Hey, I'm going to go try something on Photo..........Be right Back

Well, it's getting there.  I also edited it as a close-up, but it wouldn't go from Photos to here for some reason.  Oh well.  

We had a great meal of Cuban pork and roasted vegetables.  Love roasted vegetables.   They also had home made applesauce for dessert.  Due to my diet they tried making whipped cream with coconut milk instead of whipping cream.  It came out like a thick soup, but added lots of flavor to the applesauce.  With the vanilla in the cream, it was quite a delicious dessert!  

On Monday we went to Cottage Grove, Oregon to visit with Richard's other sister, Eileen.  Here are some baby trees in an orchard and a cool walkway bridge over the highway.

There are signs up saying the Cottage Grove is the covered bridge capital of Oregon.  Or visit was short, so we saw only one.  It did also have lots of murals.  This one was at the Humane Society.  This was painted on the side of their second-hand store.  I would also call Cottage Grove, OR as the second hand store capital of Oregon.  About half of the stores in this old town were second-hand stores.  Alas, the very short time we were there we didn't get to browse.  Many of the pics I took were taken quickly while the other three were walking ahead of me.  

I never found out what was historic about this place other than it has been around a long time.  There is some history about trains and gold I read.  Here is a train that was sitting there and tooting at everyone.  Actually I thought it was from Fairbanks because it was really going backwards, just like that one spot on University Ave.  Fairbanks peeps know what I'm talking about.

Above are pics from the Earth Tea Brewer.  It looked similar to a brewer inside.  I was a little confused until Scott said it was a manure factory.  Only in Oregon would they make manure fancy.  Speaking of fancy, check out the cool green house with pink shutters.  The flowers are pretty Oregon weeds.  I just figured out these are 4 pictures of weed!  or weeds! 

 I did doctor up the blue cornflower one to make the green and blue pop. 

 A bench beside the old railway.  The old railway was built in the 1800's.  It is now a bike path.  You would recognize it if you looked at Richard's blog.  I took the time to take the beer can off the seat before I snapped my picture.  Here is another bike repair station. 



You might have seen the mural on the left in a picture I posted above of the entrance sign to Cottage Grove.  Here is the Cottage Grove Hotel where Buster Keaton and Co. stayed while filming "The General."  In the movie was a huge locomotive crash.  I bet they had a blast filming that in the 20's!  The crashed locomotive stayed there for years as a tourist attraction until they needed the scrap metal for WW II.  I could have cropped the Coca-Cola sign, but I wanted to keep the integrity of the brick building in the picture, especially where you see someone had to knock out some bricks to insert an air-conditioner. 

 Here is a picture of the one covered bridge that we saw.  I was disappointed that it wasn't in use except for walking over.  Then I read the history.  This is a Centennial Bridge built in 1987 from pieces of two other covered bridges.  1987 was when the town celebrated its centennial.  Below you see Richard, his sister, Eileen, and Scott.  Oh, and Eileen's dog.

 I'd be happy to get some advice on the two pictures below.  I tried to do a cool pic of the trees and the river through a window on the bridge.  If I darkened the picture, like on the left, the trees look better, but I lose the look of the wood on the bridge.  If I keep the nice wood look, the trees look washed out.  Is there anyway on the Photo program that I could darken only part of the picture?  I'm sure there must be.  Anyone give me any pointers?  Thanks.

 I tried experimenting in black and white again.  The sign gives the history of the bridge.

 Here's another reminder of the history surrounding the town.  I hope the oxen didn't break the 35 MPH zone through town.  I didn't crop this to show you a pink house and the fall colors.  I thought this sign was interesting......they have one of these at the library, and one at the police station.

 My lunch.  Usually when I go to a Mexican restaurant I order seafood enchiladas.  This time I ordered this, which I can't remember the name.  I'm sure you can.  It had avocado, shrimp, red onions (low on the list of foods I'll eat), and tomatoes, and lime.  It was all kind of pickled. 

 Later that evening Peter and Naomi collected apples to make more applesauce. 

The next day, Tuesday, Richard had a conference call.  Here is a picture of him busy at the meeting.  Quincy, the Pomeranian, wasn't too thrilled with the meeting, he snored during the meeting.

 I am typing this a Mom's (Ayako) house today while finishing the laundry.  I bought a wet Swiffer this morning.  The new floor needs a good cleaning everytime we pull in the push out.  I know it has a different name, but that is what we called them back in the 70's.  I need the floor clean so when the slide comes in it doesn't scratch the floor.  Tomorrow is travel day to Florence.  I'll probably drag Richard to the beach.  Friday it is supposed to rain all day.  That will mean I can do some deep cleaning in the trailer, and we can plan our future.  Maybe I can even watch some Netflix!  woo hoo!  See ya next time!