The Super Bowl at Silver Falls

Cabin number 6 at Silver Falls State Park

To me, there's always something refreshing, renewing and invigorating about even the smallest getaways that's simply good for the soul. It's especially so when getting outside and experiencing something nice and new.

After a few weeks of too much rain, too much time at home and too much of the same old same old, we booked a small cabin at Silver Falls State Park near Silverton to just get away. We've headed there before to tread the Trail of Ten Waterfalls, but it's been years. Too many, as it turns out.

Despite some sun breaks on Sunday and visions of kicking the soccer ball around with Madeline at Silver Falls, the park itself was essentially buried under at least a foot of snow. The roads were plowed of course, and our cabin was warm and lit, waiting for us, when we pulled up. But the trailheads were snowed under, the viewpoint turnouts buried, and snowballs much more at home than any soccer ball.

But the snow made it festive — and new for Madeline — and just outside our cabin, Silver Creek shushed by under massive Douglas Firs and hemlocks. The cabin was small but charming, with a front porch for cooking, a front living room and a back bedroom with bunk beds and a double bed. Throw in a microwave, a fridge, some speakers for the iPod, a little wine, and the Super Bowl on the radio, and we were set. 

Even though I'm not a huge football fan anymore — once a diehard Browns fan, I swore off the NFL when they moved the Browns out of Cleveland back in '95 or '96— I still appreciate a good game and the spectacle that is the Super Bowl. Mind you, it's not enough to keep me in town; past Super Bowl Sundays have found me climbing Mt. McLouglin or camping on the Oregon Coast. 

But we'd listened to the first half of Sunday's game on the way down to the park, and I checked the score again on the car radio with about four minutes to go. The circumstances of the contest were too much to resist, so we all — including our black lab, Oliver — huddled in the car to catch the last and most tense minutes of the game. When it was over, I had the satisfaction of knowing how the game had gone without any of the letdown and emptiness that almost always accompanies Super Bowl games and the commercials and the halftime shows and on and on. Plus, I was able to step back out into the snow, gaze up into a momentarily star-filled sky, and let the sounds of the great outdoors fill my ears. 

We did manage a few short snowy hikes to Upper North Falls and North Falls on Monday morning. The snow and rain mix didn't exactly thrill Madeline, and I think Oliver was bummed that he wasn't allowed on the trails, but we had gotten out and away, experienced something new, and refreshed ourselves just enough. Until next time . . .

Some late-night visitors outside the cabin.