Mini Vacation

Just got back from having a girls weekend with my daughter, Amber. Except it really wasn't during the weekend because she works most weekends. So it was Sunday evening through Tuesday afternoon. I drove the three and a half hour trip Sunday afternoon and arrived at the hotel at 6:00 PM. Amber arrived around 7:00 after she was done at work and we hung out for a while and thought about where we wanted to eat dinner. I was up to pretty much anything just as long as it was a place I had never been to before. While traveling I always like to eat at places that we don't have in our hometown.

It was finally decided that we would try out a place called Oswego Grill in Willsonville that was new to both of us.

 It was amazing food and service was great also. I had the Stuffed Chicken Breast. The chicken was stuffed with provolone and mozzarella cheese and spinach then topped with a capper cream sauce. It also came with Alfredo pancetta pasta and apple hardwood grilled asparagus. I especially loved the capper cream sauce as it went really well with the stuffed chicken.

Amber had the chicken fajita which came with sour cream, guacamole, cheese, pica de gallo and I think it came with some kind of sauce. It was fresh and awesome too!

We decided to have a glass of white wine with our dessert which was heavenly. It was a simple dessert (which sometimes can be the best right?) of two slices of pound cake with some vanilla ice cream sandwiched between the slices of cake, sliced strawberries drizzled with a warm strawberry sauce and topped off with whipped topping. It was divine! We both agreed this would be a place worth coming back to.

If only our hike we had picked out to do on Monday would have turned out as good as our restaurant choice it would have perfect but alas it was pretty much a failure. Although we made the most of it. Either we couldn't follow the book's directions or the road signs. We never did figure out where we went wrong. But we did know that after spending all morning and into the early afternoon and some 100 miles later we still hadn't been able to find the trail head that would have led us to Memaloose Lake.

But like I said we made the most of it and did see some beautiful sights along the way.

 We knew we were climbing up but didn't realize that we had drove this far up until we caught sight of this view.

 Even though it has been so dry all summer a few wildflowers were still blooming.
Just so you can see what some of the back roads we were driving on looked like I took a couple of photos.

Yep, they were pretty narrow, mostly gravel and full of pot holes, boulders and you had to be careful of branches sticking out over the road and there were lots of squirrels, rabbits and chipmunks that kept running across the road. I tell you it was slow going some times. We did meet someone else on the road so that was a little tricky getting by each other. We stopped to ask if they had any idea how to get to the lake and found out they were just as lost as we were except they were trying to find a rock quarry. We ran into them two more times and we wondered if they ever found it. They seemed just as determined to find their destination as we were.

This is Amber's car on one of the back roads and this was not even the worse one. One was a four wheeler track but that was where her GPS told us the lake was. So we just parked the car and hoofed it up the track that eventually ended. We couldn't figure out why someone would build a road that went no where.  Any way it was nice to get out and stretch out our legs before heading back the way we had come.

On the way back we decided to stop at this tiny, peaceful lake.

 It was surrounded by lush vegetation,

 and it was another chance to enjoy the sun and stretch our cramped legs.

We also thought there might be a trail of some kind but no such luck. By this time we had finally given up and found another hike in the book that was pretty close and the directions seemed a bit better. So we were off to chase down another adventure.

On the way back down the mountain we caught a glimpse of Mt. Hood.

Well to make a long story short we couldn't find it either so heading back home we came across  Milo Mclver State Park and decided to give that a try. There must be a trail we could hike there. First we found a picnic area and ate our lunch then set off to find us a trail to hike.

 We did find a sign for a trail so we pulled off the road by this pretty grove of pine trees to park the car. We walked down the road to where the trail began and started walking just happy to have a trail to walk not knowing where it would lead or how long it was.

 The next thing we realize we are back by the road and oh look there is a car just like yours!

 Because it was her car and there had been a path to the trail right across from where we had parked. We totally missed it! We had a good laugh from that.

Most of the hike was in the woods which was nice since it was hot out.

 

We did find the picturesque Clackamas River at the end of the trail.

 

It was a relief to sit on a rock, dip our hot feet in the cool water and just enjoy the scenery and quietness before heading back.

 We also saw what I think was a blue heron but I'm not sure. Any way it was cool to watch it.

 We made it back to the car without any mishaps and drove back to the hotel to clean up. Our plans for the evening were to go shopping then dinner, which all went very well.

I think I will finish up our mini vacation in another post as this is long enough.

Thanks for stopping by!

Teresa