I don’t normally do a post two days in a row but today definitely was an adventure!  We had originally planned to go south to Crater Lake but the road around the lake is closed due to heavy winter snow and there is only one open road to a viewing spot.  Since that spot only has a view of the lake about 50% of the time and the forecast was not good, we decided to skip it. It’s one of the downfalls of traveling during non-peak times. So we left central Oregon headed back to the coast which involves going over the Cascades again. The weather was rainy but I looked for travel advisories for the road we had taken coming into central Oregon a few days before. It called for some snow but last time we only had a few flurries so no big deal, right?  Well this was definitely more of a storm than last time. The snow plow was out but we never saw them plowing the west bound lanes. John did a great job, keeping our speed between 10 and 20 mph. It was scary!  Thank God for four-wheel drive and the manual function on our trailer brakes.  For our kids: Dad says I’m a much better passenger in the snow than on the sand dunes. It was scary but fun and beautiful.

After the snow, it was a beautiful drive through the Willamette Forest.

And then on to our second adventure of the day. We had noticed a place called Kiger Island on the map. Since it was only a few miles out of our way and Kiger is not a common name, we decided to check it out. It’s a small island near Corvallis with only one paved road.

According to what we read, in the 1800’s Reuben Kiger bought the island.  When Reuben died the property was divided between his two sons, Dick and John.  Both of them played fast and loose with their inheritance, being good at singing, fishing, and drinking.  John Kiger’s downfall was gambling which cost him the family farm in the early 1900’s.  Rumor is he lost it in a poker game.  Well, that explains a lot!