Finish the Sentence Friday: When I think of birthdays. . .

This post to the blog hop Finish the Sentence Friday:  When I think of birthdays. . . was an easy one this time.

When I think of birthdays, I think of my most recent one, because it is very ingrained in my memory, although I have had some very spectacular one in the past with wonderful eventful surprises.

My Forever Long Birthday Celebration

Since we had kind of done some pre-birthday fun, i.e. movie and dinner out a few days before my birthday, the actual birthday was going to be kind of laid back, or so I thought.  We stopped at one of our favorite places for a peach shortcake and ate it at the  great little picnicking area by the stand.  These shortcakes are huge, and so delicious.

The next stop on our drive was at the nursing home to visit my Mom.  I wanted to remind her that she was the one who gave me life, and so we were celebrating her and my birthday.  We talked about the very hot day I was born, back in the day when the hospitals didn't have air conditioning.  Of course it was mostly me talking and trying to help her bring back a memory, even if it was just momentarily.  She is always glad to see me, for which I am thankful.

We decided to drive up the road a ways and stop at a park, but on the way, we saw a directional road sign to a place that sounded so funny, we just had to go see where this place was.    The sign said Crooked Finger.  The next sign with those two words, said Crooked Finger Road, so we turned on it thinking that the road would take us to the town.  After driving for miles that seemed like forever (remember this word), the road was becoming narrower.   We finally gave up and turned around so we could get back on track and go toward our initial destination.  (It wasn't until checking some books when we got home that we discovered that Crooked Finger is just a road, but one that eventually we leads people to Camp Dakota, a campground used frequently by the Boys Scouts.)

Now once again I was driving toward the town with the park I wanted to see.  In the past, I'd only driven through this town and had not explored any of the area. The park where we stopped is adjacent to the Molalla rodeo site.  There are many old oak trees in the park and more acorn woodpeckers than we had ever seen at once.  The birds are just everywhere in this park, and my husband didn't have the camera with him that he would have needed to get the amazing photos is takes.  (He went up there again the very next day to take photos.)  I chuckled just a little thinking back on his comment when I drove him to the park.  He'd questioned why I thought this would be a good park to visit. I didn't really have a very good answer other than I just wanted to see some of the parks there.  Discovering the abundance of the woodpeckers was a huge "yes" in my mind.  We have gone to another area to see them in the past, but the bird habitation there is like a drop in the bucket compared to this park.)

A glimpse of just some of the massive oak trees in the E. Clark  Park on the left

After leaving there to head toward home, I decided not to head toward the freeway, but instead to meander the backroads going toward our designation.  Well another road sign pointed the way to a place named Wilhoit  Springs.  I thought that might be a pretty place to see, so here we went on another traveling spree.  After driving quite a ways longer than I was expecting, we came to the Wilhoit Springs.  (It would me nice if there were some kind of heads up as to distance on these signs, or maybe there was and I didn't think it would be that far.)  What an interesting place this turned out to be.  After reading the literature on the sign board, and doing some more research when we returned home, I was grateful to learn this little bit of history about bottled drinking water in the old days.  The links show lots of pictures of Wilhoit Springs in its golden years.

Steps leading down to the now capped springs

We were beginning to have a few laughs about our adventuresome day, but there was more to come.  After leaving Wilhoit Springs, I turned on a road named Sawtell Road.  Little did we know that this road, although seemingly taking us at least in the right direction in the beginning, would meandering up and up and up into the heavily forested areas.  Occasionally we'd get a glimpse of the valley down below and it seemed quite far away.  Not one used to getting lost, (not really lost) until this day,  I kept driving thinking the road would connect with another road that would take us home and it wouldn't just go on forever.  (Did you remember the word?)  Silly me.  Only when we reached the point where the pavement ended and the road split into two roads which were both gravel, did I really wonder about my sanity.  The wider of the roads had two vehicles parked in front of it.  Some people were standing there talking. One was carrying a side arm.  The unblocked gravel/dirt road was quite narrow.  Now my husband calmly said, "Let me drive."  I was more than ready.  He had suggested that I drive at the beginning of the day, which is fine with me usually, but after my fiascos this day, it was his turn.  I must say he is the world's most patient husband, a lot more patient with me than I am with myself sometimes.

I am happy to report that we did make it safely home, and quickly looked at the maps to see where in the world we had travelled that day.  From now on we will be using a GPS Navigator (especially if I decide to drive on unfamiliar country roads in mountainous areas).