OTE - Oregon Travel Experience

Part two: Shipley Cook Grove

As part of the 2012 Oregon Heritage Tree Statewide Dedication festivities, we’re blog-posting on the four honorees. Up second, an historic farm in the Willamette Valley had two founders who loved trees.

A stunning example of the diversity of heritage trees is exemplified by the Shipley Cook Grove, a group of trees representing the horticultural interests of two Oregon farm families. Tree varieties contained in the grove include: …

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Part one: Tub Springs Sugar Pine

As part of the 2012 Oregon Heritage Tree Statewide Dedication festivities, we’re blog-posting on the four honorees. Up first, an amazingly old and giant tree.
High in Oregon’s southern mountains near what we now call Ashland—long before Oregon Country and the Applegate Trail—pinecones scattered by squirrels and birds sprouted into sugar pine saplings. A century passed, trees grew, and in the 1860s Oregon settlers filled barrels …

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Oregon Heritage Tree Program: The statewide dedication

What would life be without trees? Trees that shade. Trees that provide food. Trees whose bark, wood, and fiber produce the tools of trade, construction, and commerce. And, in the case of the Oregon Heritage Tree Program, trees whose roots are deeply grounded in our state’s history.
On Friday April 6, 2012, OTE and Oregon State University (OSU) will host a dedication ceremony for the …

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For heritage tree lovers everywhere, a trysting tree equals both romanticism and history at the same time.
Nominated for the 2012 Class of Oregon Heritage Trees, Oregon State University’s (OSU) 29 year old Trysting Tree will be one of four trees honored this year during an Oregon Arbor Week event in April.
The OSU Trysting Tree is actually a bit of a reincarnation. In 1987, the original tree was cut down due …

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What exactly is a rest area kiosk?

Installing and maintaining Oregon highway business signs are only a fraction of what OTE’s Field Operations Division has a hand in. OTE maintains and stocks kiosk information centers within 12 highway rest areas across the state. Motorists use kiosks both night and day, looking for unique places to eat, sleep, or shop.
Over the last year, OTE noted significant deterioration to almost every kiosk—many had …

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OTE Free Coffee Program volunteers create community

The Grants Pass region is one of Oregon’s most scenic stretches of Interstate 5. Throughout numerous mountain passes from California to the Willamette Valley, craggy canyon walls and old growth trees welcome motorists to our state’s famous wild beauty.
Oregon Travel Experience supervises Manzanita rest area, located slightly north of Grants Pass. As part of OTE’s campaign to encourage drivers to rest and refresh at …

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A conversation about highway business signs

If you’ve ever worn a reversible jacket, you may have preferred one side over the other. Sue VanHandel, our business and sign assistant, carries the reversible jacket analogy one step further—wearing her personal mantra of excellence for both internal and external customers
Sue helps Oregon businesses obtain space on Interstate and off-Interstate logo signs. She is unabashedly enthusiastic about fostering small business visibility.
“A lot of people don’t …

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