Today, I explore some of the southern-most towns within the Tualatin Valley: Laurel and Midway. I start the trace from Farmington Paddle Launch. I've discussed the paddle launch when I first visited Farmington.
While primarily intended for watercraft launches, the parking area is a good place to start a bike ride and hosts an all-native greenspace. It also has bathrooms and I've yet to see the parking fill, even on a weekend in the summer. If you start your ride from here, be respectful and leave room for paddlers. You can park elsewhere (Groner is a good alternative), they can't.
Heading south, I pass through Scholls, then east on Hwy 219. In retrospect, this was a mistake. While the most direct route to midway, the Hillsboro Highway has no paved shoulder and a surprising amount of high-speed traffic even on a weekday afternoon in January.
If I were to ride again (and I'd like to), I'd take Vanderschuere to Midway road and stay out of everyone's way.
Situated at the crossroad of The official story as that Midway was thus named because it's halfway between Hillsboro and Sherwood and...huh.
It's not, for one. It's closer to Sherwood. It splits the difference between Hillsboro and Newberg quite well and Newberg was a more prominent city, historically. It's also along the major highway connecting Hillsboro to Newberg.
The community was never that large but it did have a schoolhouse (named Midway School). The school shuttered when all the rural districts were consolidated into Groners but the building was converted into a private residence and still stands:
The pizza place above is the only restaurant in town but it was closed when I passed through on a Monday.
I keep heading west.
The road to Laurel is quieter now that I'm off the highway. From here, I can really tell that I live in a valley: flat farms surrounded by low hills in all directs:
Laurel post office opened in 1879 and remained active for over half a century. The "downtown" location has moved a little bit over the years but right now is at the crossroads of Laurel and Campbell Roads. The laurel trees the town is named after may have been madrones (not laurels) and they are all gone now, although there is a sizeable walnut farm:
Laurel Foods, nearby produces their own nuts. The Willamette Valley grows practically all the Hazelnuts (or Filberts) in the U.S. but most nuts you find in stores are grown overseas (mostly Turkey, often Italy). Laurel Foods isn't the only place to buy locally-sourced hazelnuts but does have a nice website for ordering. Unfortunately, there's no factory store so I couldn't pick anything up.
The dance hall is still standing (see photo above). As far as I could tell, it's never been formally associated with the Grange. The old general store has shuttered but is getting converted into a restaurant called The Porch. For now, they operate a food truck from the parking lot.
Finally, there's the church. The congregation was established in 1892 but the building is much newer.
From Laurel, I circle back to Farmington. It's a pleasant ride with less traffic and ample shoulder.
Since I started this project as a way to find new routes, I ask myself after each ride if these places would be worth visiting again. In this case, yes. These flat, meandering rides through our agricultural past show off the best that our county has to offer. I'd be especially interested in checking out some of the farm stands and restaurants during harvest season.
That said, I need to tweak the route a bit to avoid some of the more troublesome sections of 219. Safe, fun biking is usually built on past experience and I haven't nailed down the roads here well enough yet.