Donna here:

I can't stay cooped up in the motorhome all day like Tom... so off I go to 

Mt. Angel and Silverton, Oregon. Some of the tour books say not to miss the "Bavarian" village at Mt. Angel. Other than a few other buildings of this style, there really isn't much here. I mean really...even the Ace hardware had a German false front, that does not make it a Bavarian building. I was really looking forward to their "Oktoberfest" beer pig-out until I realized it was in September...WHAT?

I was a mile or two from Mount Angel when in my rearview mirror I see some modern buildings on a hill behind me. "What the heck"! I turn around and headed back to town to talk to some locals.

The Mt Angel Abbey was stunning. As far as I could count there were 16 outbuildings, all beautiful and new in brick. The grounds of five or more acres were manicured.

The chapel tower, what I saw from the road a few miles away, is what made me go back. You can read their 100 year plus history here.

 

I love seeing beautiful chapels, awe inspiring with 

rich wood, marble, statues and stain glass windows that

the lighting brings to life.

As I turned around to leave I looked up and saw these really large, amazing pipes of the church organ.  I can only imagine the beautiful music they must make.

Many of the fields around Mt. Angel had pumpkins ready for the market.

I found some very fragrant tomatoes at a vegetable stand near Silverton.

They reminded me of the garden Tom grew in Reno, and all the

great salsa we made. Too messy to make in our motorhome:-(( 

These pumpkins look different, I suspect they are for canning, not as "Jack O'Lanterns".

Silverton is a much cooler town to visit. Besides the historic buildings, it has murals painted on many of them showing Silverton's or Oregon's history.

I talked to this young lady who was touching up an older mural. Lori Webb has done many of the murals and this one put Silverton on the map. This is "Bobbie the Wonder Dog". Bobbie got separated from his family some 3000 miles away from home and six months later came walking into his home town, Silverton...in 1923.

I decided on a bagel with fresh chinook salmon & cream cheese and coffee by the Silver Creek for lunch...yum, yum! 

Oh! Tom was so pissed that I got to see a "Frank Lloyd Wright" house in Silverton. Wright is one of Tom's favorite designers of all time. When in Oklahoma we drove 80 miles out of our way to see a Wright office building.  

The Gordon House, a Frank Lloyd Wright design, was built as a farmhouse in the 60's after Wright's death and not favored by the local establishment. It was scheduled for demolition in 2001 before the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservatory bought and moved it 24 miles to its present location in order to save the structure.

Hop trellis are providing the space for the hops to grow down to the ground. They have already been harvested and right now are being crushed 24/7 for the Chatoe Rogue Brewery beer. 

These are the hops that give "my" beer such good taste:-)

What? A double chocolate flavored stout...fill me up!