Another blessedly cool week has gone by with temps in the mid 70s!
The different layers of cloud-cover every day caused lower temperatures and occasional cool breezes. Morning sunrises, as you can see, were quite spectacular ..

Monday morning wasn't any different, besides the fact of course that it was the day of our anniversary!
Twenty-four years .. I bet there were people who doubted we would make it this far ..
But here we are, and so we did. Still going strong!
We decided to celebrate by spending a day 'in the country' and explore some villages and roads we'd never been to.

                                    

We set out for Dallas, a town we'd been to before to do some shopping but never properly explored.
On the way south we made a short stop at the viewing platform and information kiosk of the Baskett Slough National Wildlife Refuge, which we'd also passed many times but never checked out any further.

  

This being a 'wetlands' area, home to several threatened and endangered species, like the Fender's blue butterfly and the Dusky Canada goose which winters here, we were surprised to not see any water at all.

                                                 

Wondering how this area will fill up with water in the short time that is left before they'll arrive, we found out later that apparently there are big active habitat restoration and deferred maintenance projects going on at the refuge for which they drained the canals that they use to flood the fields.
I guess we'll have to check it out again somewhere in the future. I'd love to hike some of the many trails here!

After arriving in Dallas (Oregon not Texas) we first checked out it's City Park.

It's a small park but offers quite a variety of scenery with playgrounds, a creek running through it, a frizz-bee golf course, and a high tension foot bridge:

                                       

                                      

There even was a Japanese Garden, although it was teeny, tiny and unfortunately under construction:

Next to the park is an Arboretum where a few short trails lead you through a pretty little forest, large meadows and alongside the small, scenic creek.

                                                                              

 

          

Back in town we had coffee and pastries at Karma Coffee:

   

After which we drove for a while through the surrounding countryside.
James had an appraisal order for a large property in the area and since he almost never works in this neck of the woods he needed comps.
Combing work with pleasure. Perfect!

                         

                        

We stopped at one of the (many) road-side fruit stands/barns for some fresh eggs and peaches:

  

Nothing better than tree-ripened fruit and eggs from happy chickens!!    

                                               

After about 1.5 hrs we ended op in the little town of Independence. 
Once a center for boat trade on the Willamette River and a booming hops industry in the 1890's to the 1940's, it's a cute town with a lot of pretty, historical houses lined up along main street.

 

Here's a thing .. how do all these towns keep their hanging baskets looking like this?
Mine are just pathetic in comparison .. it bugs the heck out of me!

                                              

Time for lunch! We ended up in 'River', the Gilgamesh Brewing location in this town.
We've discovered a long time ago that breweries usually serve good, simple but very tasty food and their craft beers are always fun to try of course.

 

                                

 

They had a cozy brewery-style in-door space, but we opted for the nice and airy out-door covered space. 
Our waiter took a pic of the happy couple:

Congratulations you two!

As I mentioned, we split a nice large glass of that craft beer ($9 for that glass, crazy!), and an insanely good pulled-pork and bacon Mac&cheese!
(No calories in that one!) 😆

 

OK, on-wards, next up: Salem!                                                 
Or rather, the Salem Center shopping Mall. This was again one of those places we'd driven by but never visited, so, high time to remedy that!

I'm not a shopper by any means but I just wanted to see what shops were there, and sometimes it's just fun to browse a little ..
Which is what we did, and it was OK, and now I know. Been there, done that!

Time for the last item on our 'to see' list. The Salem City Park.
Every time we drive over the bridge over the Willamette River here, my eyes are drawn to the view of the Paddle Wheel boat at the dock in the park down below. 

 

This is a picture of the bridge I stole from the Internet and the boat is somewhere there below, but of course you can not see it in this particular shot ..
After driving down to the park, just minutes from the city-center, we walked up to the docks and look .. there she was:

 

                                      

You can book sightseeing tours, during which they take the boat out for a while, some of which include lunch or dinner depending on the time.

They actually tour the Park's Oxbow Slough, not the river, another wetland/floodplain environment that lots of water fowl and other wild-life are calling home.

Riverfront Park itself is a 23-acre park which offers good views of the Willamette River, nice walks, perfectly manicured grass and vegetation, benches and picnic tables as well as many mature shade trees to sit under, an amphitheater for performances, restroom facilities and even an old-fashioned (but new) carousel.

The wooden carousel is protected from the elements inside this pavilion above:

How I loved these carousels when I was a child, I always wanted to ride the largest horse!
In hind-side I wish I'd gone for a nostalgic ride ($2) .. o well, next time!

(I thought this was an old carousel but apparently it is newly handcrafted, built by volunteers for the Salem community!)

And there you have it. Our 24th anniversary day. Next year our 25th!
Maybe we should throw a party? Nahh .. but maybe we'll do something a little more special than we normally do.

Mmm, let me think ..

 

Oh, I almost forgot. I took some pics of the Super Blue Moon that day:

 

  Look, it's really blue! .......

    Just kiddin', I used my photo software to 'cool' it's color .. it was yellow.

I can't believe it's the end of October already and Halloween is just around the corner!
So far Fall has been a quite mild affair this year, it's been mostly dry and although temps have cooled down considerably it hasn't been too cold ... yet.
We did have a few 'almost-frosty' mornings last week though and the sunrises were often quite spectacular!

                  

                 

The colors are strong when there's a cold, clear sky but I think they're even better when there are some clouds for some extra 'drama'!

                     

And after the sun has emerged for real, the lingering fog over the meadows sets everything in a beautiful golden and orange glow ..

                     

                     
We sure live in a beautiful spot!

My niece had mentioned on the family-Whatsapp that the 'Oliebollen kraam' had once again arrived in town (which is Den Helder in the Netherlands btw)!
It usually arrives at the end of September and stays in town until Old Year's and I would be one of the first to get some! I love oliebollen!

But of course there's no such thing here in the States, although donuts or funnel cake come close, so what to do?
Yup, you bake them yourselves!

We bake them every year but always on New Year's day only, but this year I just couldn't wait!
At least we halved the batch this time, so we 'only' had 12 of them, but boy-oh-boy were they good!

                                                                 

                                                                                             Yummm!

Of course this doesn't mean that we're skipping them on New Year's.
Ha! No sirree!

Any-who. Since these delicious balls aren't necessarily without about a couple of hundred calories each we needed a good, stiff walk to offset some of the damage.

We decided to go back to the Baskett Slough, the National Wildlife Refuge on the way to Dallas where we stopped earlier this summer at their viewing platform and information kiosk.

This time we actually drove into the refuge until about midway where you can park and take one of the trailheads that take you through several areas of the reserve.

                                               

Since at the moment more and more migrating birds, especially geese, are arriving each day they've closed the trails around the lakes for the season but there are still enough accessible which make for a nice, moderate hike.

From the parking lot we first climbed the small hill, Mt Baldy ..

  

At the top of which (125 m) you find this viewing area ..




Which gives you a nice 350 degree overview of the surrounding area ..

 

You had a peek of the lake in the distance but it was too far to see if there were any geese present and even the zoom on my camera didn't show any.
James thought he heard them but of course me being deaf I didn't hear a thing ..

    

      

We proceeded our way following the trail up and down through a beautiful oak forest and  after a while it looped back to the parking lot.
Although most people that go here rave about all the wildlife they see, we didn't come across any at all.
Of course it was the middle of the afternoon which is usually not the best time but still, it was a little disappointing

And since all that hiking had made us thirsty (nice excuse) we decided to stop  at the Salt Creek Cider House on our way back.

         

     

Again, this was one of those places we'd passed numerous times and always wanted to go but never went .. so far.
I'd read on Facebook that they recently harvested their new crop of apples so it seemed a good time to pay them a visit.

They have a pretty little set-up, with a pond and some ducks and the apple orchard that you can walk through.
Inside you can see the vats of cider merrily fermenting away ..

               

We decided to try a flight of 4 different ciders and since the weather was decent we went outside to sit at one of the picnic benches :

                                   
                                                                         

             

These were 'hard' ciders and I have to say .. I'm not a fan.
I just find them too harsh, too dry and than all those bubbles .. I just end up with a sour stomach.

In comparison we thought these were at least much, much better than when we took my sister and her partner to another cider mill this spring where all four of us thought their cider was really absolutely awful but no .. I guess we just don't like (hard) cider!

OK. Last, but not least:

I did it! I voted! For the first time since I became a citizen!

                 

So whatever happens .. I did my best!