Silverton 25 August 2018

Saturday in Silverton, so there's a market. This compact little market has a lot of good food, but not much organic (maybe they haven't gotten that memo yet?) and lots of dogs: one woman with three nasty little mutts, a big backpack, a shopping bag, and zero sense of her footprint, knock tomatoes on the ground. "Oh, sorry," she said, unapologetically. 

This little person stoutly denied that her thumb was watermelon flavored.

Then off we went to Silver Falls State Park, one of Oregon's treasures. The drought that has afflicted the whole West Coast hasn't damaged the park (yet) but the Falls are a mere shadow of their normal August glory. Here, at left, is thready North Falls, to be compared with North Falls in October, 2017:

Not a perfect comparison, sorry. To my eye, the Falls looked to be about 50% of what they were almost two months later in the year.

We took a shorter walk this time (compared to October 2017), starting at the parking lot above Winter Falls (not currently flowing) and down to just below Twin Falls. I am devastated to report that one of the Twins is dead. The background of this page is the rocks on the bottom of Silver Creek beneath the bridge that connects the Winter Falls Trail with the Canyon Trail.

This route took us down steeply, then back up the canyon to the viewpoint below North Falls, whereupon Rochelle called "enough" and back down we went, stopping near Twin Falls for a Farmers Market peach.

At the peak of sweet perfection! We sat beside the creek, ate two, got sticky, washed off in the flowing water, and then started back up the cliff to our car.

Here (below) is the usual eye candy you would expect me to take on a walk along a trail through the unspoiled Oregon woods.

Another dinner at Silver Grill. Still slow, disorganized, and over-priced (and I am willing to take on the mantle of being the evil influence that throws them off balance) but they did make the overpayment right, and tonight's dinner was good.