Yesterday was another nice relaxing day. Breakfast at our Eugene B&B was half a warmed grapefruit (is that normal?), an egg scramble with sausage and veggies, and a couple slices of zucchini-type bread. Not bad, not thrilling.
Then we set out on our covered bridges hunt, which was fun and different - I don't actually think I've even seen one in person before. They are very pretty and in scenic rural locations, and I enjoyed them. But by the time we hit our sixth and final one, they did all start to look the same. A bit of background: Most of them date from the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, and of course the covered part was to protect the wooden bridge from the weather. Lane County has 20 covered bridges, "more than any other county west of the Mississippi." Some highlights:
Around 4:30, we arrived at the Wolf Creek Inn, an old coaching inn north of Grants Pass, built in 1883. I really loved it - it was like sleeping in a museum. (They even leave the unoccupied rooms open so you can view them, complete with a rope across the doorway.) And it's very friendly, homey, and peaceful. There were only a few other guests - although they did take the "Clark Gable Suite" I was hoping for!
The inn was a main stop on the stagecoach line (and later, highway) between California and the north, and many impressive names have stayed here over the years. These include Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, Jack London (who stayed for a few weeks in 1911 while writing a short story), and Anthony Hopkins. And a scene in the movie "A River Runs Through It" (1992) was filmed nearby, so Robert Redford rented out the whole place for the cast and crew for two weeks. Maybe we stayed in Brad Pitt's room!
Our room
After a great dinner of traditional fried chicken and biscuits in the inn's restaurant, we spent the evening exploring the place and doing our photo-management and trip-planning work at a table in the upstairs ballroom. Back in the room, I read a short story by Jack London in an antique volume from 1925 before going to sleep. So it was a really nice evening. Our bed felt pretty historic too - complete with a significant tilt - and it was pretty cold in every room except the beautiful downstairs sitting room, but otherwise I could just about live in that place.
This morning we enjoyed an excellent breakfast of eggs, hash browns and sausage in the inn's restaurant. The waitress was warm and friendly and we enjoyed eavesdropping on a fellow guest, who was telling the waitress about her hobby of hunting ghosts. Apparently there's at least two at the Wolf Creek Inn; one is a man who sits in a rocking chair, looking at his pocket watch, waiting for a stagecoach. I don't remember who the other one is. (We didn't see either one.)