Rural Decay: In Search of Places from Long Ago

Rob and I have a thing for abandoned buildings.  We find them fascinating.  This is why we decided to buy a Living Social deal for a bed and breakfast in Dufur, Oregon.  After a bit of research, it turns out there are a lot of ghost towns out that way.  We haven't seen much of central Oregon yet.  And lastly, being on the east side of Mt. Hood in early June promises sunshine, which these Portlanders just couldn't turn down.  Although as the date got closer, I did get a little worried that we'd find ourselves in the middle of no where completely bored.

As it turns out, we weren't bored at all.  We found plenty to do and that part of the state is breathtakingly beautiful.  I'll always be amazed out how diverse Oregon's landscape is.  It was such a treat to be in the midst of rolling hills and a seemingly never ending sky.  And of course, we found some cool stuff along the way.  Above is a rice elevator from 1910.

Here's my new favorite waterfall.  Before I had a thing for abandoned buildings, I had a thing for waterfalls.  Lucky for me, I moved to a state that has plenty of them.  This is White River Falls in Tygh Valley.

There's an old dam by the falls and we walked down to take a peek at the building with the generators in it.

Rob was pretty stoked about the turbines and stuff, but I was more into this little beach.

After we left Tygh Valley, we drove all around to check out ghost towns that Rob had looked up ahead of time.  Here's a bit of what we saw.

We brought some camping gear so we could make lunch on the go.  Below is a shot of our view.

Below is a photo of Dufur as you're driving into town.  

This is the view of the mountain from Dufur.  You can also see it very clearly from the hotel.

While all of that adventuring was fun, one of the highlights of the trip was Supper Club -- a fancy dinner at the hotel served family style, so you get to know the people you're sitting around.  Sorry for the blurriness, I was trying to discretely snap photos on my phone. 

I'm already excited for our next trip -- San Francisco in August for our third anniversary!