#alsea falls

This Labor Day was off and on sunny and cloudy all day, rising from an overnight low of 56 degrees to a high of 81.

My blood sugar was down again this morning, to 175. Must have been the Tuscan chicken we had for dinner.

After having our morning coffee and playing the online brain games, we showered and dressed. Then we had oatmeal for breakfast.

A little after 9 a.m., we left to make our way to Alsea Falls. The Alsea Falls Recreation Site is located along a Bureau of Land Management National Back Country Byway, 13 miles west of Monroe, in Benton County.

Alsea Falls is open for camping from the first weekend in May through the end of September of each year. Day use is open year-round. The South Fork of the Alsea River flows through the Alsea Falls Recreation Site, cascading down 30 feet to form Alsea Falls in the day use area.

We also tried to get to the Green Peak Falls in the same area, but the trail was a bit much for us, so we headed back to a little coffee drive-thru that we had spotted in Monroe to get some caffeine to carry us through the next stop.

Located ten miles south of Corvallis, Oregon, the William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge protects many of the historic habitats of the valley, including the largest remaining tract of native Willamette Valley wet prairie. Fields of wildlife food crops are interspersed with Oregon white oak savannah, meandering creeks with bottomland Oregon ash forest, old growth bigleaf maple, and native prairie.

Other management goals are to preserve native species and enhance biodiversity including the rare oak savannah, upland prairie, and wet prairie habitats. Endangered and threatened species such as Oregon chub, and Bradshaw’s desert parsley find protection and sanctuary on the refuge. A herd of Roosevelt elk can be found in the bottomland forests or farm fields on the refuge.

After walking around some trails at the refuge, we returned to the office and little store so Nancy could buy a couple of presents for great-granddaughter Sophie’s first birthday, which will be coming up before the end of September.

Looking for a nearby place to get some lunch, we drove north to Philomath, where we stumbled across another restaurant in the Ixtapa chain. We had good luck with the one in Florence a few weeks back, so we decided to try this one. We were not disappointed. I had an horchata with my cheese enchiladas, Nancy had a Dos Equis with hers. There are several other Ixtapa locations in Oregon. We will try the others whenever we wind up near them in the future.

When we were done with lunch, we took US 20 back toward Corvallis, then got on OR 99W and headed back to the Eugene area. Nancy took over for the last 30 minutes or so of the drive home.

Once home, we napped. When I got up, I worked on Flickr just before it flipped. My account garnered just under 2,000 views. Then I downloaded today’s pictures from the DSLR. There were just 74 between the two stops. I posted three images to Flickr and two to FB.

I continued my computing until Nancy asked if I was interested in anything for dinner. Since lunch had been a little late and quite filling, we settled for some cheese and chips before settling in for an evening’s streaming.

We started with the fifth episode of Alicia Silverstone’s “Irish Blood.” Then we took in the next two episodes of “The Sommerdahl Murders,” which made up a single story.

The sunshine returns for most of the day tomorrow, with temperatures ranging from a low of 56 degrees to a high of 81.

The only thing on our calendar for tomorrow is my men’s recovery meeting in the evening. No doubt something else will spring up during the day, especially once we have had our coffee and gotten our brains working.

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On this day in 1878, Emma Nutt became the world’s first female telephone operator when she was recruited by Alexander Graham Bell to the Boston Telephone Dispatch Company.

September 1, 1875, was the birth date of Edgar Rice Burroughs, an American writer recognized for his prolific output in the adventure, science fiction, and fantasy genres. He is best known for creating the characters Tarzan and John Carter.