This is a short trip I made while waiting to judge day two of the Wasco County Fair. My hubby suggested I wasn’t very far from Sherars Bridge. When I looked it up and discovered it was only 8 miles from where I was staying, I hopped in my car and headed down the road.

The drive was gorgeous. The road followed the Deschutes River. On the opposite side of the river ran the railroad track. I’d sat alongside the river in Maupin the night before and videoed a train going by across the river.  Beyond the railroad tracks was reddish sharp-edged rock on the yellow hills.

Following the river, I was on a barely two-lane asphalt road. Luckily, I only had three vehicles coming from the opposite direction. I saw the platforms and ladders the local Indigenous tribes use to stand on to catch fish. I happened to be there on a day when they weren’t fishing. A sign said they didn’t fish on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday to let the fishery people do what they needed to do to take care of the fish and the area.

Sherars Falls isn’t tall but it is beautiful with frothy rushing water pouring down into the crack in the rock made from centuries of water flowing over it.

I took several photos from different directions and angles. I enjoyed walking over the lava rock that led down to the river’s edge thirty feet above the water.

From there I looped my way back toward Tygh Valley where I was judging. On the way I saw a sign for White River Falls. It looked inviting, so I pulled into the small day use only park. The trees and inviting green grass in an area that is mostly rock, dried grass, and sagebrush, felt like an oasis. I sat a moment taking in the cool breeze under the shade of the trees.

Then I walked down to the board explaining the presence of a building down in the ravine made by the White River just below the waterfall. It was one of the first hydroelectric plants in Oregon. It was built in 1910 using the water from the waterfall. But the river received its name from the white silt and sediment that flows in the water. A holding pond was made for the water to flow into to allow the sediment to settle on the bottom before the water was put through the hydro plant.

The falls is beautiful and as always, I gain serenity and energy from any for of flowing water. I wonder if it’s due to my sign being Cancer? Something I need to look up.

This little side trip was fun, interesting, and hopefully like many more I take when out and about judging at county fairs. Do you like to side trips when you are traveling?