Visiting Alpha Farm and Other Adventures

We left Springfield Tuesday morning and headed along Highway 126 toward Florence, we drove through torrential rains following MaryLou's direction's to her home. The road was narrow in places (which made for an interesting ride in the passenger seat) We stopped in a little town called Mapleton, where the Alpha farm has a cafe/bookstore called the Alphabit. It was like stepping back into the seventy's, the food was very good, they sell hand made jewelry, used books etc.

We arrived at Mary Lou's home and after a beer with her and her daughter Carina, we headed for Alpha Farm where Carina is an intern.

Part of the huge garden.

A Yurt where a member lives

The 100 yr old farmhouse where they have their communal meal, and some member,and visitors stay.

The dining room.

Carina, Skip, and Mary Lou

You can read more about Alpha Farm here http://members.pioneer.net/~alpha/

After some wonderful apple crisp at Mary Lou's we headed back to the highway  to Florence, it was getting
dark and raining as we headed back up Deadwood Creek road, that is when we discovered we had no headlights. We got to Deadwood, and pulled into a little  strip mall with a gas pump, store and post office.
the owner said we could stay the night . So we spent the night outside Deadwood Country Store.

This morning at seven we were on our way hoping for sunshine. This is what we found.

Winchester Lookout Highway 101

This is where we had lunch

Our view Along the way





and our view at  Harris Beach State Park at Brooking Or.

We will decide in the morning whether we will stay another day or move on to Californ

Jean