The mill race and the river

Quiet afternoon at work. I alternated working on my item response theory paper and tidying up the office (making my desk less of a mess and going through boxes of materials from a project that ended in 1996). Finally, after 4 p.m. I rewarded myself for the latter and cleared my head from the former by going outside to look at the mill race. It's a canal built over a hundred years ago to float newly cut logs to the river, back in the days when Eugene itself was something of a lumber camp. I like the mill race, though its murky green-brown color may not be for everyone. Big-leaf maples and ash trees hang over it, and the views from the little bridge make me think of Monet paintings.

As often happens when I'm standing looking at the mill race, I get it into my head that I'd like to look at the river too, which is very close, parallel to the mill race, with only the research park's parking lot, the train tracks, and a few cottonwoods between the mill race and the river. However, seeing the river is another matter: There's a steep embankment leading from the parking lot up to the railroad tracks, and it's steeper going down the other side, with nowhere really to stand but on the tracks. I decided to walk through the parking lot to find a better spot to look from, which turned out to be a good plan, as a freight train then passed through. The meadows were mostly pale brown from lack of water, and dotted with queen anne's lace and the bright pink-purple blooms of wild sweet peas. To see the river, though, I ended up having to walk all the way to the Autzen footbridge (which goes to Autzen Stadium). I didn't have a camera with me today, but here's a picture from late April.

Willamette River from the Autzen footbridge: