Saturday, September 26, 2009

The Gorge is Gorgeous!

The Columbia River Gorge IS Gorgeous! It is so green and lush, and we really enjoyed our drive through here. We started at the Bridge of the Gods. I remember this bridge from when I was a young girl. I remember crossing to when I was headed to a Girl Scout Camp. I thought it was the coolest and weirdest bridge I had ever seen.
Not because of how it looks, because I had seen plenty of bridges growing up in Oregon. But because of this.....
The "road" was a metal grid that you could see right through. This is the bottom of a car driving over just above us.
See, this is looking down as we were driving across the bridge. As a kid...this was COOL!

On the other side of the bridge is Washington State. As I mentioned before, we were Geocaching, so I needed to find a cache in Washington to be able to count the state. There was one very close to the bridge, up a little trail on the Pacific Crest Trail. It was a beautiful little walk for us. And sooooooo GREEN! I don't think Utah does green! At least NOT like Oregon does!
Just a stump with moss....so pretty....and the ferns.
Xander checking out the moss. We found the cache and moved on. We went back across the bridge and our next stop was Bonneville Dam.
Here we are looking at the salmon going through the fish ladder at the dam. They were HUGE! I don't like fish, but I know Jim's mouth was watering!
Then we checked out the ladders from the outside. Here I actually caught a fish as it was jumping. They were saying it was the height of the Steelhead run. There were lots of fish. I have been here many times, but this was the most fish I ever recall seeing.
Next we took a look at the second powerhouse. Look at all that water! And Xander was doing some very serious Boulder Hopping. He finds such joy in simple things....you just gotta love him!
Next stop...Bonneville Fish Hatchery. Here's Xander at the Sturgeon pool. These fish are bigger than Xander! Notice that Xander is still sporting his shades!
Next stop, Multnomah Falls. I love this place. Again, so green.
View from the Bridge. If you look at the top right of the curved set of stairs, you will see Jim sitting on the wall. He's waving so Xander can find him.
Xander looking for Grandpa from the Bridge.
Doesn't this look like a Post Card? It's so green. I know I keep saying that, but it REALLY is! This is on the Historic Columbia River Highway.
Apparently it's been around a while! It was a much prettier drive than the freeway. I'm glad we took the extra time to drive the old highway, it truly was a Scenic Byway!

Next we did a little nostalgia for me. We went to Alpenrose Dairy.
Alpenrose is a family owned dairy in the Portland area that has many good memories for me. I know that probably sounds strange, but let me explain. They do many family oriented events through the year, like each Easter, they did an Easter Egg Hunt. They are still doing this each year. I remember having to color my egg according to my age, then you go to they appropriate Baseball field and then when the whistle blows, you HUNT! If you found eggs with a number taped to it, you won a prize along with the candy you collected. Those fields seemed HUGE when I was a kid...but they are just regular ball fields now.
For the Fourth of July, they did a pagent, and I remember this building being the backdrop. There were grandstands all around, and they did rodeo type stuff and fireworks. Now...this is a midget race track, so they aren't doing the Fourth of July celebrations anymore. They also have a Velodrome for bicyclists. (Bicycle racetrack that the corners are very slanted). And whenever you visited, you had to walk through Dariyland.
Which was still there! Some of the buildings are just false fronts, others house "museum" type articles. It's like an old west town. I have some very happy memories here, and I just wanted to see the place again. Sometimes I just wonder if I need to see this stuff to realize they ARE memories, and not just made up in my head.

The last major thing we did this day was we headed south towards Salem...and again, back to Geocaching. I had found out that the ORIGINAL Geocache was placed just outside of Oregon City. I figured I couldn't be THIS close and not go to see it. There is a plaque placed to mark the spot as this cache is no longer there.
Xander and I at the plaque.

After this, we headed on to Salem and found our Hotel for the night. Phew....what a day.

4 comments:

Richard & Natalie said...

Thanks for sharing all those beautiful pics. I'm going to definitely steal your route next time we head to Oregon.

Chastina said...

I love the pics! Those are some beautiful sites.

Rachel said...

Beautiful! No, UT doesn't do green. It sure tried this year though!

And I never caching with you two weeks ago........I'm lame......

Amanda D said...

You might not remember me (I'm Jean's daughter) - but you were right by my house! We live right by the gorge. You're right, Oregon knows how to do green!