Thursday we took a road trip down the Willamette Valley. First stop was Champoeg State Park. It has been many years since we were last there. The Visitor Center has been greatly improved. The museum is small but very well decorated. Quite nice. The Willamette River was the chief route for transportation throughout the valley. The townsite of Champoeg was in the middle of commerce until the massive flood of 1861 when all of the buildings were floated away. Never to return. The park is large and a great to visit for biking , hiking, camping and even boating. The very nice state park.
Leaving Champoeg, we drove south through farmland. Nurseries were everywhere. We had a picnic at Willamette Mission State Park that tells the story of a Methodist Mission established in the 1860s. The beginning of the colonization of what we now know as Oregon.
From there another longer hop south to the Thompson Mill State Heritage Site near the village of Shedd. The water powered mill has been there from the 1860s changing and adapting to the changes in rural needs Grain, hydro-electric power , animal food grinding. A very interesting story of change to keep viable.
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