For Mother's Day this year, Mick wanted to have an outdoor adventure. With the weather not looking great for a picnic at a park - we decided on Burgerville for lunch. With a location just three blocks from church, it was an easy decision as we all love Burgerville. For those of you not living in the the SW WA / NW OR or Portland Metro area - you just might be out of luck. The farthest east location is in The Dalles, and the farthest north is Centralia, the farthest south would be Albany.... You just don't know what you are missing!
After lunch - we headed home to change into outdoor gear. It wasn't really raining, but it was wet. Our destination was the Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge (TRNWR).
The TRNWR has been open officially for about a year. We live only four miles away, and had not come to visit yet.
The area before settlers arrived back in the early 1800s had been a wetlands. The Oregon Trail arrivals managed to drain the wetlands and turn the area into farmland and farmed for over 100 years. In 1992, restoration of the area was started.
We started with a visit to the vistor's center. Tegan found 'write in the rain' notebooks in the gift shop - and both kids wanted to get one to record our visit. They filled pages with the things we saw...like this dead tree in the floodplain.
The rain managed to hold off - and we had a great walk around one of the trails. We are sure to return another day and explore this gem so close to home!
Interesting to know - since this refuge is within an urban area - it leads to interesting things to see. One border of the refuge is a 'you pull it' junkyard.
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