Places to Stop
Out on the highway exploring the surrounding community? Want to get off the beaten track? “Places to Stop” is our feature page for community businesses along busy interstate corridors.
While our website continues to upgrade, watch for news and links to more in-depth posts from this page. Our goal is to fill this page with places you just won’t be able to stop yourself from visiting. All of the businesses featured are Oregon Travel Experience highway business sign, travel kiosk, or Travel Plaza customers.
Gallery Michael Gibbons and the Yaquina River Museum of Art
Creative minds often do their best work when the space around them empowers dreams. Oregon landscape artist Michael Gibbons and his wife Judy carried this premise one step further when they created an environment which not only sustains them creatively, but also enriches the community in which they live.
Gallery Michael Gibbons is located in Toledo, Oregon—an historic hamlet established in 1866. As the local timber industry unraveled, the Gibbons’ experimented with a new paradigm—and ended up reshaping the center of their town into an artist-driven and supported destination. Their gallery and museum now attracts visitors from around the globe.
Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm
The Iverson family has been in the tulip business for almost 40 years. Much of the product grown at the Woodburn farm is sold locally at Fred Meyer and Trader Joes. Locally produced products mean fresher flowers for the consumer as well as strength for the local economic infrastructure.
Susie Schriever, the farm’s event coordinator, explained to OTE how the tulips are hand cut in the fields, transported back to the sheds, and then washed, bundled, and packaged. Wooden Shoe keeps a close eye on the quality of their tulips from the time they leave the farm’s refrigerated packing house until they reach the retail venue. The farm also means local jobs for local people; Wooden Shoe employs both seasonal and year-round staff.
Read the full story or watch the video slide show below.
Hellgate Jetboat Excursions
Imagine barreling down white water rapids on the Rogue River, screaming with joy all the way. From the numerous customer videos on You Tube, it’s evident this popular attraction in Grants Pass is just the kind of fun people of all ages enjoy.
Hellgate Jetboat Excursions is a family owned business with a unique sense of paying their success forward, and in many ways could be identified as one of Oregon’s “heroes.” The Hamlyn family relocated to Grants Pass in the 1980s and fell in love with the river. From designing and manufacturing boats locally, to employing area residents, the Hamlyns evolved into dedicated stewards with a mantra to give back.
Pizza Schmizza
Oregon Travel Experience’s Director of Sales Harry Falisec spends an enormous amount of time thinking—and a great deal of his brain workout occurs while driving down I-5 and I-84. A few months ago, Harry was behind the wheel in the Portland Metro region and realized he wasn’t seeing a well-known pizza company’s logo on OTE’s highway business signs.
Pizza Schmizza is a local company whose roots connect to numerous stores near interstate exits. Since part of Harry’s work includes promoting local economic development, he figured Pizza Schmizza was an ideal candidate for a highway business sign. Harry decided to visit the franchises in person and see if their owners knew how to “sign up.”