Sumpter Valley Railroad

Here is the last post for our Unity Lake Trip. While in Sumpter, we not only got to pan for gold but we also got to ride on an original steam engine. It is called the Sumpter Valley Railroad. The train ride goes through the Sumpter Valley. It is beautiful. We had an opportunity to see where the dredge did most of its work. Connor was lucky enough to sit in the engine where the train is operated. You could feel the fire that creates the steam. It was a great time.

Unity Lake and Sumpter are definitely something that we will be returning to as a family. We will probably try to spend more than two night there this time. We might even take some family along with us. Enjoy!

Sumpter

Sumpter---what a place. My boss, Tim, suggested that we go there while we were at Unity Lake. The family is glad that we took his suggestion. We had an excellent time in Sumpter, Oregon. Sumpter is an old mining town that was founded in 1862. It is the home of Dredge State Park and Sumpter Valley Railroad.

Dredge State Park is the home a large electric dredge that was used to mine gold in the Sumpter Valley. One end of the dredge would pick up sand, gravel and dirt. Inside the dredge, the soil would be filtered so all that was left was gold. The remaining soil and rocks would be dumped out the back side. This would fill things in so there was not a big whole in the valley. Here are some pictures of the dredge along with two cuties kids in the world!

There was plenty to do at the State Park. Connor did some panning for gold with a State Park Ranger. Katie had to do a little helping. Connor found some gold along with some fool's gold and agates. Some pictures of him panning for Gold.

There are issues with the blog server. More to come later along with pictures.

Unity Lake

We took a tip to Unity Lake a couple of weeks ago. It was a great time. We or should I say I did not realize that it was going to be such a long trip. It took us about 5 hours to get to our destination. The kids did a great job in car. Here is what we had to look at most of the trip.

We were pleasantly surprised when we got to our destination. We rented a cabin. It was not much but it had some beds and electricity. The only disadvantage was we had to hike across the campground to get the the bathroom. We had running water and showers though. I would say the view out our lake was well...i will let you decide. Here are some pictures of the sunset.Pretty amazing! I guess the only "issue" was all the bats flying around at night looking for bugs. We actually kept pretty busy while we were there for the two days. I will add another blog about that. I should really get back to work. We are definitely going back next year. We might even take some family with us.