Historic Columbia River Highway

We took Roger and Mary Jo on a marathon waterfalls tour yesterday. Drove the length of the Historic Hwy and stopped at all the scenic spots. We had not been all the way to Vista House at Crown Point, an observatory 733 ft above the Columbia River. Unfortunately, it was a bit cloudy and hazy, so the views weren’t as great as they could have been.

    They wanted to do a short hike, so we stopped at Latourell Falls, one that we hadn’t yet been to. It was another lovely hike through the lush green forest to the upper falls, and not too bad of a climb. The boys had fun climbing down behind the falls to take pictures.

 

We saw some interesting trees along the trail, a perfect place for some photo ops.

This is the only wildlife we spotted, and Roger asked some other hikers what it was. Turns out to be a banana slug, quite a slimy looking critter that is native to Pacific coast forests.

Have to include one more shot of Multnomah Falls. We’ve been before but it is so impressive. There weren’t quite as many people there this time so we walked up to the bridge and got some ice cream. It was a fun day, and we hope the anniversary couple enjoyed it, too.

 

Just Another Week at the Dam

This week slipped by and I realized I haven’t posted since last Sunday. We’ve been much busier than these two worthless cats!

It was a rainy Labor Day, so we went into Portland for some shopping. Got new rugs for the “house” and they look great. Washed and waxed the front, back and driver’s side of the rig this week. We’ll eventually get around to the other side. Took a nice hike to Wahclella Falls, on the other side of 84. After the rain we had, there was a lot more volume than the first time we saw it.

Sold our old bike rack on Craigslist last week and got a new one from Raxter. It weighs 20 pounds less and is a much lower profile rack. Also we were surprised that when it is folded up we can actually open the back hatch. Tried it out by taking the bikes to the Historic Columbia River Hwy and went for a nice ride. We are so happy with the new bikes and the rack worked well and is easy to use.

Work was fun this week. Did some more blackberry cutting at the waterfall and pond we worked on a few weeks ago. It’s really starting to look nice, but we failed to take any pictures.

Yesterday we went to the Carson Fish Hatchery for Kids Free Fishing Day. The Corps put up a little display on water safety and hypothermia, and we helped out at the mini-golf. Since fishing and kids are high up on Jim’s list of favorite things, you can imagine how thrilled he was to go. Then he found out we had to leave at 7 am, so he was really happy! He did survive, and so did the kids he came in contact with. It was actually a fun day and something different. These pictures were taken before the hundreds of kids arrived.

Just as we got back to the project, our phone rang and it was our friends from Pensacola, Roger and Mary Jo, who arrived the night before and are staying across the river at the Bonneville Hot Springs Resort for their 40th anniversary.

We took them for a walk around the fish hatchery and on our way back the bridge was swung so we had to wait for a large barge to get into the lock. The tug was sticking out past the gate, so he had to unhook and move up next to the barges before they could close the gates. It was interesting to watch.

Then we took them to our favorite pizza place, Walking Man Brewery, and again it was excellent. We’ll branch out and try somewhere new before they leave on Thursday. Today it’s off to some sightseeing and waterfalls.

Salmon and Walking Man

After a dreary, drizzly day, the rain stopped and the sky cleared so we took a walk over to the fish hatchery to visit Herman (the sturgeon). The salmon have arrived to spawn, so there were literally thousands of them finding their way to their birthplace, the Bonneville Fish Hatchery. It is incredible to think they can spend several years in the ocean and then find their way back home to spawn and die. Quite an interesting lifecycle.

We than decided it was time again to try out Walking Man Brewery  in Stevenson, WA. We went there for the first time last week and really liked the pizza and beer, and after this second visit,  it ranks up there as one of our favorite pizza places so far. It’s not much to look at from the outside, and the majority of the tables are outdoors. Both times we’ve been it was in the 60’s, and most of the outside tables were taken. Guess these Pacific North-westerners don’t mind eating cold pizza, but we opted to sit in the cozy basement pub.

Besides serving a great pizza and excellent beer at reasonable prices, it is an adventure using the restroom. There are 2 doors, one marked Readers, the other marked Dreamers. I stood for a moment trying to decide which was men’s and which was women’s. Since the Readers door was closer, that’s where I ended up. The walls are painted with quotations from various famous people, mostly related to beer, so it is rather amusing the first time you go in.   Then the hand washing part was really challenging, at least for me, as you can see by this picture  Jim took of the faucet.

Next time we’ll try the Dreamers side and see what surprises are in store there.

Nostalgia For Someone Else’s Past

Gayle has temporarily run out of stuff to post and is currently under heavy medication trying to control that urge. So, she has instructed me to post.

During our time here at Bonneville I have had occasion to run across lots of classic cars. They say the west coast is  automobile Mecca and if they didn’t I just made it up. I thought that was pretty much southern California but I guess it bleeds over here as well.

Lots of the car clubs go for trips and many stop here. What follows are photos of some of them.

This first is a Bentley. Don’t know anything about it as the owner didn’t come out while I was looking at it.

These were part of a Chevrolet club out for the weekend.

This last group I saw yesterday at the Fish Hatchery parking lot. They had been out traveling together for the past week. They consist of a 1936 Chevy, 1928 Ford Model A, 1951 Chevy. The 1936 is towing a wooden teardrop trailer that was made in 1935. The other two are towing teardrops that are more recently made replicas. In fact, I overheard the guy in the 1928 tell someone he built that trailer about 10 years ago.

For those that might be interested you can see more photos of these here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/jcgc50/ClassicCars#

Have fun, you  know we are!

Mount Hood, OR

Took a nice little day trip yesterday on the Mt. Hood Scenic Byway, about a 100 mile loop from Hood River around the mountain. Just outside of  Hood River is a turnoff for Panorama Point, a small park on a hill with a lovely view of Mt. Hood, Oregon’s highest peak, way off in the distance.

It was a beautiful drive through fruit orchards and the national forest, with intermittent views of the mountain.

 

We stopped to check out these alpacas at a ranch along the road. We had never seen one before and they had the cutest faces.

   We also stopped at the Timberline Lodge, which was built by the WPA in 1936-37, and is quite an impressive structure. The outside of the building was featured in the film “The Shining”, as the Overlook Hotel. Timberline Lodge was made a National Historic Landmark in 1977.

It is primarily used as a ski lodge, since there is skiing year-round. The lodge sits at 6000 ft elevation, and several hiking trails begin near the parking lot. We decided to take a short hike up to Silcox Hut, near the ski lift. The hiking trail book said it was an easy mile hike with great views. Well, the views were great but it wasn’t exactly easy, at least going up. We found out the hut was at 7000 ft, and being at sea level the past 6 weeks, we weren’t used to the elevation. We finally made it to the hut, and got to see some skiers and snowboarders going by. It wasn’t the most appealing setting for skiing, but at least it was 70 degrees.  Being above the tree line, it was a desolate looking mountain.

These were 3 guys on snowboards who did some acrobatics for us as they passed by. They made it look so easy!  

The best part of our hike was when we were almost at the bottom of the trail and we saw an elderly couple with trekking poles walking up towards us. We both thought, they’ll never make it to the top, since we had such a hard time, and we said hello as we passed. The man then asked us where we were from, and we stopped and chatted for a good while. What a delightful couple. They were locals, and we talked about camping, travelling, and hiking.  They were just out for a little stroll. Two years ago, for his 80th (!!) birthday , he summited Mt. Hood for the 50th time!  Since the hut we hiked to was at 7000 ft and the summit is at 11,249, that is quite impressive for anyone, let alone an 80 year old. He said last week they did a 5 mile hike in the Gorge. Gives us hope that staying active will keep us young, even though many times it makes us feel really, really old!