Road Trip 2010 Day 10: Salem, Bush House, Deepwood Estate, Mission Mill Museum, Silver Falls State Park, Portland

We were in no hurry to get on the road. It was nice to just hang around and chat with my cousin and his family this morning. Finally, we reluctantly decided we better head out. We decided to stop in Salem. We went to the Bush House and Deepwood Estate, both historical dwellings. We didn’t go inside either building, but walked the grounds and gardens, and Stephen took pictures of the houses from the outside. The Deepwood Estate was especially beautiful.

Then we headed to the Oregon State Capitol and to Waller Hall on the Willamette University campus. These were both strictly photo ops. There was a beautiful white church spire, but because it was cloudy and the spire was quite, it was hard to get a good picture.

Our last stop in Salem was the Mission Mill Museum. The mill itself was very interesting, but the tour began with a very unfortunate film. The movie dealt with the founding of the mission that spawned the mill, and it was extremely patronizing in its treatment of the Native Americans the missionaries were charged with converting. It was so bad, we had to skip the rest of the movie. We could have skipped the mill (and the $6 entry fee per adult) pretty easily. The movie left such a bad taste in my mouth, that it really wasn’t worth the visit.

If we had skipped the mill, we could have spent more time at Silver Falls State Park, which would have been better. We drove out to Silver Falls after the mill, and saw South Falls, the hiked to Lower South Falls. The lower falls was definitely more beautiful, not least because fewer people chose to hike to it. After that, we just stopped at the viewpoint for North Falls so Stephen cotake pictures from there at a distance.

Finally, we headed to Portland, since it was about 6:30 pm. We checked into the Econolodge Convention Center, which was small but clean. Our room was $88.