Day 27: St Helens OR - Albany OR

Success!  This Unit has finally driven the length of the Aufderheide Scenic Byway!  Of which MOAR shortly.

Last night's motel has gone a bit overboard on the Halloween nonse...

Fortunately USAnians seem to be early risers coz US-30 from St Helens towards Portland was not terribly busy.  Thus affording me the time to observe that were the brakes on the Cranky Old Grid to fail, the towing thingy on the back of the unladen logging truck in front of me wold ride up the bonnet, through the windscreen and straight into my chest which, as it is an enormous lump of steel with Bits attached to it, would do me a power of no good.

Portland was relatively painless and a certain amount of fun was to be had matching features on the ground to those modelled by SCS Software in American Truck Simulator.  They certainly got the bridges and the dangleway.  But not the bloke riding a Vespa at 40 mph surrounded by enormous trucks.  South of Portland I-5 runs more or less up the Willamette valley which, for those interested in hist.¹ was the destination of most of the migrants who took the Oregon Trail in the 19th century.  Hence said valley contains lots of people and thus lots of traffic and I-5 doesn't get properly interesting until you get into northern California so it was a relief to turn off onto OR-58 and see some bridges.

Lowell Covered Bridge

Office Covered Bridge.  Longest covered bridge in Oregon.

The Aufderheide Scenic Byway starts at Westfir, or finishes there if you are coming in the opposite direction, and climbs gently up the valley of what is probably the North Fork of the Willamette River for approximately quite a long way until it suddenly turns sharp left, climbs over a ridge and drops sharply into the valley of the South Fork of the McKenzie river, past the somewhat depleted Cougar² Reservoir and down to OR-126.  On a Tuesday afternoon in mid-September it is almost empty and, after a fortnight or so of mostly high desert, amazingly green and easy on the eye.

Constitution Grove

Road Movie.  It's like this for 58 miles.

Low tide at Cougar Reservoir

OR-126 heads on gently downhill and back to I-5, whence the Cranky Old Grid was turned back north and up to Albany.  Today has been wall to wall sunshine and tolerably warm so natch, at least according to Nice Motel Lady this morning, it will be raining tomorrow, when I shall go and look at a volcano.  And some other Stuffs too.

1. Which fews boys are.
2. No, Roger, not that sort of cougar.