With less than a week left in the year 2000, Mother Nature blessed us with a beautiful day. The temperature was in the upper 50's and the sky was only partly cloudy. Time for one last trip in the 914.
As with our trip in the fall, we chose to make our drive on a different compass heading. One of the better highways in this part of Oregon is State Highway 47. It runs between the Willamette Valley town of McMinneville and the Columbia River town of Clatskanie. The highway has several natural breaks or segments in it and, today, we chose the one from Highway 26, north through Vernonia. Then we cut back to the southeast on the Vernonia-Scappose Road to State Highway 30 along the Columbia. Then it was a run back into town from there.
Heading west on the Sunset Highway (Hwy 26) the road narrows from a divided, limited access highway to a two-lane highway with arterial intersections. Highway 47 joins in and runs concurrently for a few miles. At Staley's junction, Highway 47 takes off to the north. Always on the lookout for both interesting architecture and heavy machinery, this trip provided an ample share of both.
No sooner than we had made the turn onto 47 and we saw a train parked parallel to the roadway on the right. What caught my eye was a flat car that had a bunch of salvage equipment on it. It looked to be lumber mill stuff, but I couldn't be sure. Stopping the car for a closer look, I was surprised to see that the train looked as if it had been left there for the past 10 years. I know that this is not true since I was up this highway last summer, but the cars and the locomotive were right out of a Steven King movie.
This part of the country has been heavily "harvested" for trees. Both the road and the rail were used to transport lumber out of the mountains. The road into Vernonia has several great train trestles on it. One has the date (1925) of manufacture clearly visible. Heading north on this road the second trestle is the most spectacular. This is the Pebble Creek bridge and, like the others, is constructed of creosote coated timbers. I would estimate its height at about 60 feet. Back in the early 1980's there was a big fire up in the Pebble Creek area. My engine company was called all the way from Aloha to help control the fire. The strategy was to use Highway 47 as the break and keep the fire from getting to the bridge. I have to say that we (Engine 259's crew) were pumped up at the prospect of being the cornerstone of the defense. Imagine our surprise when the task was given to a prison crew and we were there in case it got away from them. Oh well. All that distance to travel and all that time (8+ hours) on the fire line and we pumped a total of about 25 gallons. The bridge still stands but the wooded area that we were a part of defending was clear-cut. Oh well.
Vernonia is a quiet town, still heavily involved in the logging industry. The main part of
town is north of the Nehalem River, but in the late 1990's it was heavily hit by serious
flooding of the river. Leaving town, heading north, you will pass the Washington Grade
School. This is a very nice building of brick construction, similar to others that you will
see in towns across the state. Climb up the hill out of "downtown" and cross an arch
spanned bridge to the intersection of Hwy 47 and Pebble Creek Road. Turn left and stay
on 47. You will notice that the river is parallel to you on the left (west) now. The
topography to your right is flat as a board and must have been a mess when the river came
over its banks. Further down the road, on the right, there we saw a low spot that had a
nice pond on it with ducks and all. Across the water there sat a little dredge, all rusted
out. It looked like something on the scale of a child's toy. It was kind of bizarre, sort of
like the train. I'm thinking of the movie "Christine" now...time to get moving.
Not too much further on and we leave the highway on a turn back to the Southeast. Highway 47 continues on to Jewell and Mist and then on into Clastkanie. We made the turn onto the road to Scappoose. This road climbs up out of the Nehalem flood plain and heads almost due south back towards the Tater Hill (1500') summit. As the car peaked the crest we have a very busy time driving. The roads had been sanded during bad weather and so there was a build-up in the center of the road and in the center of each lane. This made the car a bit squirrelly as we pushed our speed. Lest I forget to mention, this road is full of patches and heaves and so the ride is a bit unsettling both for the car and the passengers.
Once you get within a few miles of Scappoose the pavement improves and it is a nice break from the bone-jarring ride over the hill. The Scappoose-Vernonia Road dumps out onto Highway 30 just a block or so north of the new Scappoose Fire Station. Oregon history tells us that Scappoose (meaning "gravelly plain" in the local native American dialect) was a Columbia River trading point well before the first white man came in the early 1790's. I know it for a trading point too since it was here, at the elementary school, that I met the last owner of this wonderful little 914 and traded him a check in return for what has been many years of automotive delight.
Back down Highway 30 towards Portland. I took the Cornelius Pass turnoff to the South and climbed the Tualatin Mountains and down into the Tualatin Valley. All in all, it was a great little trip of about 100 miles. It was great to get the car out one more time this season. Happy New Year!