August 5, 2013
Travel day for us, we
headed down the 5 (that’s west coast talk for I-5) to Eugene where we headed
east on Hwy 58. At Lowell we found a Covered Bridge,
this bridge had been built
in 1945 and replaced the first bridge that had been built in 1909. The 1945
bridge was in operation until 1981 when a concrete bridge was built right next
to it to handle the ever increasing traffic. The covered bridge was left ‘to
it’s own’ so to speak. It was there as a tourist attraction, but neglected, and
left to the fate of floods and vandals. In 1989, Oregon developed a Covered
Bridge Program to preserve the covered bridges, but it wasn’t until 2006 that
the Lowell Bridge was rehabilitated.
The bridge stands today as it did when it
was built and with a majority of the same timbers that it was built with. The
beam of the original bridge is on display; it was 300-400 years old when it was
cut.
You don’t find that kind of timber any more unless it is part of preserved
landscape.
We continued on our way,
east on Highway 58, through the Cascade Summit, where Diamond Peak, standing at
8744’ is watching over Crescent Lake.
The trees are beginning to thin, as we
are heading east, into Oregon’s high dessert. Highway 97 takes us south to
Highway 138, which is just north of Crater Lake National Park. Tonight and for
the next 4 nights we are camped at Diamond Lake RV Park. This is a very nice
park, very rustic looking like a national or state park, but we have full hook
ups and Phil got the satellite to work, so we aren’t really roughing it!! LOL!!!
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