Letters for January 30, 2026

Small County, BIG Adventures #LoveWhereYouLive

It was a little disheartening to recently hear members of the community, many of them from McMinnville, say that Yamhill County is lacking in outdoor recreational opportunities for our children. I raised my two daughters in this county, and we never lacked for anything to do outside! In fact, I am deeply grateful for the many amazing spaces we had to play, walk, run, and ride! 

Some of the outdoor spaces that our family loved may not have been county-owned, but when families look for places to recreate outdoors, they don’t think about who owns or manages the land. They think about whether it’s safe, age-appropriate, and engaging for their kids.

My daughters and I were frequent visitors to Miller Woods Conservation Area because they had a pond, frogs, salamanders, and—when they were old enough—the full 4.5-mile hike through woods and grasslands. We practiced riding bikes on the paths at Wortman Park and Thompson Park until they were skilled enough to make it the eight-mile round trip to the Butteville Store through Champoeg State Heritage Area. 

They played fairies and wolves at the mushroom hut at Galen McBee Airport Park. My oldest zipped around on rollerblades at Joe Dancer before breaking her arm at the skate park there (and this mom raised in the ‘80s consequently learned about the existence of wrist guards!). We were regulars at what we called the “Library” or “Dragon” park (which is, in fact, the more boringly named City Park). At Discovery Meadows, they grew from splash-pad toddlers into confident climbers scaling the tall, slippery sand-pit cone, eventually becoming the oldest ones who could reach down and grasp the hands of the smallest children so they could also have the glory of reaching the summit.

They played pilots and astronauts at the Evergreen Space Museum Playground, slid down the longest slide in Oregon at Schaad Park, and walked up to see the 40-ton glacial rock at Erratic Rock State Natural Site. Even in high school, my youngest and her friends would swing, spin, and teeter-totter at Dayton’s Courthouse Square Park during lunch breaks. When hikes longer than three to four miles no longer required singing “The Ants Go Marching,” we added the quiet, nearly four-mile Guadalupe Loop at Trappist Abbey to our list of easy, nearby nature walks.

Both girls learned to go solo on a kayak and paddleboard by launching from Dayton Landing and paddling toward Lafayette along the calm stretch of the Yamhill River. On hot, sunny days we floated from Edigar Landing to Grand Island Greenway, tubes tied together like ducks in a row along the Willamette River.

With the exception of Champoeg, all of these outdoor adventures were right here in Yamhill County, within a 5–20 minute drive from our home in Dayton. They were free, or nearly free, aside from the outdoor gear we already owned.  

The truth is, children, and even teenagers, aren’t looking for a hundred different places to go. The variety may have mattered more to me than them. What mattered to my daughters was being outside together—playing, exploring, imagining, and later decompressing from high school and busy lives. 

Getting kids off their devices doesn’t require grand new destinations. It happens when adults put down their phones, step away from their keyboards, and say, “Hey, let’s go outside together” —even if it’s just for a few loops around the block.  

Caralee Johnston

Mom, Mommy, Mother, Bro (titles with help from my teenager)

Yamhill County Resident for 30 years

Photo Credit: Yamhill County News File