The Road Less Traveled

Jeffrey Butts

The forecast for the upcoming weekend was that it would be the warmest weather of the year. Since I had little time left in my vacation and the sun would be shining, I could not wait to get out on the road in the little Porsche. You know of my love of the two lane state highway and I had been planning this ride for a couple of weeks. If you live in the Portland area, this is the perfect Sunday drive. It can be easily done in one afternoon. I have two recommendations for lunch stops, one for eat-in and one for picnic style.

My first stop was local. I went to Tom Miller's 20 acre spread and spent an hour or so talking to him about his trains. Back in 1995 I organized a tour for the Oregon Region of PCA and this was one of the stopping points. Tom is not really too excited about visitors. He has valid liability concerns and I am sure that it is disruptive when folks ask to stop by. Nonetheless, he was very gracious with his time. He remembered the first visit and I guess since no one caused a great deal of damage that time he allowed as to how I could come on down. This place is just too awe-inspiring for words. It is not the scale of the hobby, nor is it the expense. I just can't seem to find the right words but it has something to do with the small details. The trains are perfection. Everything is correct but it is more than that. This is not so much an example of correctness in detail but more a feeling of a really personal touch that extends to his property as well as his trains. Check out the April "Objects in the Mirror" for more details.

This was to be a solo, top down trip. Obviously I started in Beaverton, but if you live in the Eugene area, you can start from the other end. I hopped onto I-5 and headed south for the 30-minute drive to Salem. West on Highway 22 through our state capital, and then take the turn off to Dallas just after crossing over Highway 99W. Be careful with this left turn, it is well marked but very exposed to the oncoming traffic.

I stopped in Dallas for lunch. It was late morning and I elected to not bring a picnic basket on this trip, wanting to stop and get food fairly early. Dallas is the home of the Polk County court house. This handsome building was constructed during the 1890's and is made of local sandstone. A couple of small howitzers out front honor the veterans of past wars, or protect the town from the government in Salem; I'm not sure which. There also used to be an oak tree at the SE corner of the block that was called the hanging tree. It had some well documented use but the city elected to cut it down for civic expansion. Yeah, right. I suspect that it was more because of the concern over reputation. A wimpy conifer now stands in its place. I ate lunch at the Washington Street Steakhouse, which can be found (not surprisingly) on the left side of Washington Street as you head out of town on Oregon 223, our designated highway for the day. Dallas, by the way, was named for George Dallas, James Polk's Vice President. I talked to a life long resident while I ate lunch. He knew the original name of the town, but I have forgotten already. He did have plenty of stories about the towns past, some that I'm sure that the Chamber of Commerce would like to bury. For example, Dallas was once the headquarters for the KKK in Oregon. Another less than glorious historical fact.

I have learned to love the older architectural style and Dallas has plenty to offer. The storefronts in the downtown area are primarily two story brick buildings hosting a variety of small shops and stores. As I left the restaurant I took a brief ride to the right at the traffic light on Levens Street. There are some older homes down this street and, just before the s-curve and the creek, you will find the Muir & McDonald Tannery, the oldest operating business in the county. I can only imagine what they have dumped into the creek. A quick U-turn and a right back at Washington Street and you can head out of town on Highway 223.

South of town is the junction for Falls City. This little town is right off the set of the movie Deliverance. I drove through town but had the feeling the whole time that there were people watching me. Just before the bridge at the west end of town I stopped to snap a photo of one of the buildings and I spotted a woman in the window looking back at me. That was enough. I clicked a couple of quick ones and then got the Hell out of there.

So, continuing south on Highway 223, the road alternates between gentle curves and peaceful valleys to occasional second gear corners around property lines and tall stands of trees. Some of the farms in this valley have wonderful old barns, not all of which are under attack by blackberry bushes. There are also a number of older schools and church buildings along this highway.

If you brought a picnic lunch, the next stop is for you. Alongside this part of the highway stands the Ritner covered bridge. The bridge was built in 1926 (at a cost of just over $6000) and was the last of Oregon's covered bridges in use. It was condemned and slated for removal in 1974. A grassroots effort by the children of the local Pedee Elementary School and other residents resulted in the bridge being saved and moved (for $26,000) to its current location. They have made a nice park out of it, with a small parking area and benches both under expansive shade trees and in the old bridge itself. Ritner Creek babbles in the background.

Next stop is the Kings Valley Store. Kings Valley was a thriving community in the late 1800's. By 1915 it had a school, a church, two lodges, two sawmills, a flourmill, and a population of about 150. Although a far cry from that now, the current Kings Valley store provides a good place for stopping for a soft drink. You can sit on the bench out front and watch the lumber trucks drive by.

Oregon 223 ends at the junction with Oregon 20. I turned back east and headed through Philomath towards Corvallis. Philomath was originally founded as a school. Started in 1865 by the United Brethren, construction continued through the first decade of the 1900's. Philomath College closed in 1929, in part due to poor financial management, but primarily due to the increase in tax supported schools one of which eventually became OSU (Go Beavers!). I drove through Corvallis and again crossed I-5, heading for some of the smaller towns east of the freeway. My destination was Sublimity (Oregon comes up with some great names for towns). This was the original town settled by the United Brethren before they went to open the college in Philomath. As I drove through town I got the crowning jewel on this day trip. The siren at the local fire station went off when I was about a block and a half away. I turned around and moseyed on back to the gravel parking lot. There was a single firefighter putting on his boots in a most casual way. I asked the boy if they were testing their siren or if they had an alarm. He replied that this was an actual call, an automatic alarm for the local retirement home. It was a weekday and they didn't seem to be getting a lot of responders. I should mention that I was wearing my old fire department sweatshirt. Mind you, I have been retired for about a year and a half from that avocation. I asked if he needed any help and he replied that I was welcome to come along. He told me I could find spare turnouts on the back wall. Well, you didn't need to tell this old fire horse twice. I was a part of what was eventually a five man crew. Cool! Oh yeah, it was a false alarm. Didn't matter to me though, I still like the adrenalin rush.

After that it was time to find I-5 and head on home. Oregon 223 is one of the finest day trips in the Willamette Valley. Travel it from the north or the south and the quality of the roadway is outstanding. Traffic is typically light, although on weekdays you want to be careful of the log trucks. For us, the round trip was about 200 miles.