Cottage Grove

Cottage Grove is a small town in the valley 20 miles south of Eugene along the edge of the fir laden mountains. It seems at one time there was a lot going on with the nearby gold discoveries, the railroad, and the lumber industries. Their claim to fame now is the town with the most covered bridges so we unloaded the bikes and rode to three. It was a little scary riding over the foot bridge that swayed as we rode.


The old railroad bridge was on the verge of collapse and was restored not all that long ago. It is now a foot bridge with interesting history information kiosks standing nearby.


This little bridge in town is cute and was built in 1987 from remains of other bridges as a centennial celebration for the towns 100th year. it is also a walking bridge but there was a bonus of a geocache.


The town's name came from the fact that there were a lot of cottages in an oak grove and many are still scattered around town. The place could be spiffed up a little and would look very charming. We passed a few cute ones on our bike ride.




The town was also filled with attractive murals.




Meadows campground on the Corps of Engineers lake Cottage Grove provided the perfect spot for $9 a nite. We sat alongside the lake and listened to a gentle rain, the first since the tornado in Oklahoma on day one of our trip. We laughed all the way back to Eugene because we left late in the afternoon to go park in a parking lot for the night, but Leon could go to a movie in the rain. As it turned out it wasn't even raining. We had dumped, filled up with water and had showers, so in addition to the calm surroundings, it was money well spent: we just didn't sleep there.