At Chitwood we stopped at a covered
bridge to take pictures. A woman drove
across the bridge in front of me and
stopped. As I took pictures she rolled
down her window and said, “I always tell
tourists that if they want to take a picture
of something old, they should take a
picture of me! I was six years old when
they built this bridge.” She had lived
here as a young girl and had seen them
build the bridge in 1920. Now, long after
she had moved away from the area, she
was back here, living next to the bridge
again. I took her picture.
The road followed the sleepy Yaquina
River through the forest. The last mile
and a half of our walk was on a long switchback that doubled back toward the west before again turning east. We had discovered at Chitwood that the mile markers along the highway were not accurate – there seemed to be a two-mile gap somewhere since the 18-mile marker was actually only about 16 miles. Because of this, we went two miles beyond where we had told Lisa and Marty to meet us. Since we couldn’t get cell phone reception this deep in the mountains, we began walking back toward Chitwood, hoping they would not head back toward Newport before we got there. After about a mile and a half of walking, they found us, and everything was fine, especially since they brought lot of good munchies with them.
