Oregon, I'll be back.

What a fabulous three days R&R in Oregon.

 After getting the car on the road I couldn't decide if I was going to go straight to Lincoln city or go to visit the aunt's grave. Calculating the mileage I decided to power on to Harrisburg and then go over to lincoln city. Nice straight road, quite nice scenery and then into the pretty area near H. Surprisingly I found the graveyard easily. I had had instructions of how it looked from a cousin in Salt Lake City although it's been some years since she was there.  The gravestone is in front of a White House! I had also got my own directions and knew it was on the left after I had turned into Powerline road.  Didn't know how far but  that was good enough, I found it eventually, the road stretches for some miles. 

A young lady who I think was a type of council worker stopped when she saw I was parked and we had quite a conversation and she was quite moved that I had come all the way over from England to visit a grave.. Her ancestors came from Ireland. 

I spotted a tiny graveyard on the left with very old monuments. It was very well kept, not by any authorities, but by the people who live in the big White House behind it. My cousin thought they were Quakers. I knocked on their door when I left, to thank them for looking after it, but no one as at home.

I found the stone under a tree quite near the river.  I had seen pictures of it but wasn't quite prepared for how I felt when I got there.  

In 1879 my Uncle Charles, his wife and Aunt Harriet emigrated to South Dakota. The details of all that I'm hoping to find out in SLC. I knew they had land and were successful farmers.  Aunt Elizabeth emigrated in 1891 after her parents had died. She took with her two teenage nieces who had lost their parents. She joined the others in SD.  In the early 1900's they all moved over to Oregon where they died.

So... I left Powerline road very happy that I had made the visit.  Now I had to find my way back to the I5 and back to Salem and pick up the 22 and 18 down to Lincoln City. Simples! Well if I tell you I know 

Salem intimately you should realise that it wasn't simple at all! It was a case of getting onto the 22, that was easy and then suddenly as I was going through the town, which was very busy, I realised I hadn't seen any 22 signs for a while but one for Albany and remembered that I had passed Albany on the I5 so....thought  I had  better check it out so I pulled into a smoothie booth and no you need to go back into town and over the bridge. Well the strawberry smoothie was lovely and gave me the mental power to pull out the park and decide how I was going to cross over the 2 lanes and go in the opposite direction. Luckily the car in front was doing that so I followed him.  No sign of the bridge but found 22 signs again and then lost them.  Next stop Chinese restaurant (didn't realise it was) they were all shouting in Chinese at each other and all chipping in with instructions to the girl I was speaking to. She drew me a map which was pretty good because I couldn't understand her!  Absolutely no chance I thought but followed the map and there suddenly was the bridge, what a lovely girl, I take back all the negative thoughts. After that it was plain sailing and a fantastically beautiful ride through the mountains to Lincoln City. I arrived at Dawn and Braden's home just in time for dinner!  A lovely beige wooden single storey home by the beach. The only downside was I couldn't see the sea as the fog was in and it was quite a few degrees colder than I was used to. They invited me to dinner and I gratefully accepted. I had fresh salmon, a kale,onion,garlic mash and potatoes with good conversation after. I knew I was going to like it here and was looking forward to a restful couple of days. I had driven over 200 miles.