Tuesday, June 10, 2025
For the Adventure to continue properly, we needed to start the day with a good breakfast.
I consider any hotels' waffle iron
for customer use to be an essential
component of a good breakfast
A cool sign to be sure but the waffles did not cost 40¢, they were part of The Lodge at Riverside's all-included breakfast for all of its overnight guests.
My apple-cinnamon waffle was made to perfection with lots of love.
Beautiful colors in early morning
Grants Pass
our hotel grounds before hitting the road
We only made one stop on our drive through Oregon today as we took our time and got off Interstate 5 to travel along some rural, rustic country roads for a change of pace.
Corvallis, Oregon
Population: 61,849
Once in Corvallis, we found a parking spot for the Blueberry II next to the ancient Benton County State Bank building.
We were hungry and Yelp had given us the location of an eclectic pub that we thought would fit the bill.
As for Corvallis itself, it is a small college which is the home of Oregon State University. OSU, home of the Beavers, has an enrollment of 38,000 students which are not counted as part of the city's official population.
We were in attendance at the Washington-Oregon State football game in Corvallis in November of 2023 and fell in love with this quaint city. I think that if a ever moved out of California to another U.S. city, Corvallis would be high on my list of places to relocate.
The Brass Monkey was Yelp's
recommendation for sandwiches
Their outdoor table art hooked
me instantly
So did that poster on the right
I liked this sign to be poignant
Laurie and an I.P.A. with
several other wall hangings
The Brass Monkey was fun place
that offered up a great pulled pork
sandwich and an awesome ahi taco
for our dining pleasure
Our fine lunch deserved a fitting dessert. We knew just where to go.
Next door to the Brass Monkey
was Sugar J's Ice Cream Workshop
It was warm again with temperatures in high 80ºF range, a far cry from yesterday's 102ºF in Grants Pass but still perfect ice cream weather. On a comforting side note, the humidity was much, much lower today as well.
Sugar J's had lots of ice cream
related art work to enjoy along
with their delicious concoctions
What my raspberry chocolate chip
ice cream would have looked like
in yesterday's scorching heat
So that's how they do those
multi-scoop cones, who knew?
We thought that a walk around part of Corvallis' downtown would aid our digestion.
The hanging gardens of Corvallis
Not sure what this piece of art
represents but it was interesting
In front of an old, old dive bar
We decided to drive over to the OSU campus for a visit before driving on to see the famous Multnomah Falls near Portland on the Columbia River Gorge.
OSU's Reser Stadium can hold 35,548
rabid fans for a Beavers football game
The stadium is named after mega donors and OSU alums, Al and Pat Reser.
Indeed it is!
Awesome football art in front of
the main gates
We visited the huge merchandise
store across the street from both
Reser Stadium and . . .
. . . Gill Coliseum
This is OSU's multi-purpose arena that opened in 1949 and can hold 9,301 fans for a Beavers basketball game.
This Coliseum is named after
Amory Tingle "Slats" Gill a member of
the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame
He had received his nickname as a 12 year old from his friends who noted that his ribs stuck out of his thin body like the slats on a picket fence. Slats stuck with him for the rest of his life.
Gill was a star basketball and baseball player at OSU, then known as Oregon Agricultural College, from 1921-1924, twice earning All-Pacific Coast Conference First Team honors and was a 1924 All-American.
He would return to his alma mater to be the Beavers Head Basketball Coach for 36 years, Head Baseball Coach for six years and then Athletic Director for the final two years of his life.
As we walked around the inside of Gill Coliseum we noted some of the tributes to legendary Beaver cagers.
Slats was a Beaver for Life to be sure
Harvey Wade "Swede" Halbrook
This was one interesting 7'3" Beaver Center who I remember due to his nickname mostly as an NBA player for the old Syracuse Nationals. He still holds the OSU record for most rebounds in a single game when he gathered in a whopping 36 caroms in a game against Idaho.
Mel Counts
An apparently rare Oregon State athlete without a nickname, Mel was a 7'0" Center who went on to play for six NBA teams, including the Los Angeles Lakers, in an 11 year pro career.
As we walked back to the Blueberry II, we passed the following building across the street from Reser Stadium.
Maybe not the best place for a person
named Contreras to be standing
in these horrific days of ICE raids
A nice mural of Cesar Chavez
on the Centro Cultural
Go Beavers GO!
Our drive off the OSU campus took us by the Beavers baseball stadium proudly displaying its rich heritage. How a program from the rainy Pacific Northwest can become so good at baseball is a mystery to me.
The 2025 OSU squad just qualified for the eight team, double elimination College World Series next weekend.
The Beavers will join Arizona, Arkansas, Coastal Carolina, Louisville, Louisiana State, Murray State and UCLA in Omaha Nebraska battling for a fourth NCAA Championship since 2006.
Their Beavers (47-14-1) first game will be against the ACC's Louisville Cardinals (40-12) on Friday.
Due to intense traffic from Corvallis to Portland, we revised our plans to visit the Multomah Falls and headed straight to our hotel in Vancouver, Washington just across the Columbia River from Oregon. We now plan to visit the falls on Wednesday morning before moving on to our final destination, Seattle.
Stay tuned . . .
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