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Published: July 16th 2017
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The River valleyMileage – 204.3
Remember Pictures are at the end of the blog too. (ie most of them)
We wake early, eat, pack and head out before the crowds. Now as you know from yesterday’s blog, we were near the airport, but we really didn’t know how near we were. Seriously, the view from our room is of the runway. There is a plane at the end of the parking lot but, we heard no planes during the night.
Our first stop was Target to get our supplies. As we exited the van I see scratches that were not noticeable last night in the dark. So out comes the cameras to document the damage so that we won’t get charged for it… We got most of the stuff on our list and we filled our coolers (yes, Susan packed 2 collapsible coolers in her suitcase, for our van). BTW, most of the hotels we will stay in have refrigerators so we can keep the stuff really cool at night.
Now, off to the Columbia River Valley. We were driving the Historic Oregon Hwy 30 Route instead of taking the interstate. Part of the drive included a 10% uphill
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Vista House grade. I wanted to get a picture of the Highway sign. Susan and Pam had to remind me to put the window down. Maybe I’m still stuck on stupid. At the top of the grade we see a fruit stand and are so excited so we stop, but they had no fruit, Huh???? Back in the car and down the road. Our first stop was Chanticleer Pt. What a beautiful way to start our day. The views of the River Valley were fantastic. From here we could see our next stop, the Vista House.
We pull into the Vista House which is up on a point. There we got another glimpse of the fabulous views we had just seen. Vista House is an octagonal building that was built in the early 1900s and was to be used as a rest stop for travelers. It kind of reminds you of a light house without a light, however it did have really pretty glass windows.
Heading on up the highway, the first waterfall we encountered was Latourell Falls. This was much taller than the falls we have in NC. Then we stopped at the Bridal Veil Falls area and took
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panoramic from the Vista house the poisonous plant trail. There we saw cliffs and the river and lots of poisonous plants but no falls. These falls jilted us, like a bride does her groom. So, we decide we can see these mysterious falls from the interstate and we drive down and take the exit. Yes, I said “it has to be here, I think” Susan and Pam laugh at my comment. We drive past but don’t see anything, and then turn to get on our route hoping that we just couldn’t see if from that side of the road, but NO. I don’t think there are any falls there… (Yes, we could have hiked down a treacherous poisonous trail BUT…) We head back to the Historic Highway.
We passed Wahkeena Falls but we couldn’t find a parking place. As we were trying to find a place to turn around we run into Multnomah Falls. This is the tallest waterfall on the route and the second highest in the USA at 620 feet. Luckily we found a place to park there as someone was pulling out. Parking was a premium. We decided to eat lunch there in the local restaurant. There were not many folks
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The sisters at Latourell Falls in the restaurant when we got there, but it was almost full when we left. We all had the rainbow trout and it was wonderful. Susan and I had the berry crunch for desert. After lunch we hiked up to see the waterfall. This fall has a bridge over the lower quarter of it. The falls are so big, it was hard to get it all in a picture. We then hike up to the bridge and take more pictures there and then hike up more to see if we can find any better views. It was crowded but it did not take away from the beauty.
Next we headed back to Wahkeena Falls. We were glad we were going in that direction because the traffic to the Multomah Falls was backed up for 1.5 miles (stand still – everyone waiting to park - some people were standing outside their cars). After viewing the Wahkeena Falls we decide to bypass the backup and skip onto the interstate for a bit. Well, the exit onto the interstate only goes west so guess what, this is the same exit to the interstate we took to try to see the Bridal Falls
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poison plants. good picture of poison oak and you know what, Bridal Falls still isn’t there, the bride still hasn’t shown up for the wedding. This sure reminded us about the plank road last year- rinse repeat, rinse repeat. We then took the next exit past where we got on. What? This exit is into a parking lot. Seriously, back on the interstate. Then we see the exit for the Multomah Falls (oh this must be after the falls since there were no other roads intersecting Hwy 30 that we had seen) but NO, it was another parking lot and furthermore, it was closed. So we continue down the highway. Finally we arrive at an exit that is a real road and rejoin Hwy 30, but now we have to back track to see the falls we missed.
Our next stop was Horse Tail Falls and guess what, there was no parking there either. I jump out of the car to see a license plate and yes, it was South Dakota (we play the license plate game on all our trips) and Susan and Pam leave me. I get some great pictures but hey, I don’t even have my phone. Oh well, I sit on the
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Multomah Falls wall and wait for them. Where are they? Finally I see them driving back by and I hop in the van. We continue searching for a parking place, but they are happy they drove further down as there is a tunnel. We head back towards the tunnel looking for a place when we spot someone leaving. Well, let’s say, Pam can’t parallel park the van so Chinese Fire drill. Susan and Pam switch and Susan whips it into the place.
Out of the van we pour and head to the tunnel. It was a cool find. It was the old road tunnel until the 1940s. We get some nice pictures. We then follow the road back to Horsetail Falls and Susan and Pam get their pictures too. Of course, Pam had to get her feet wet as she has on all our adventures. She said the water was REALY cold. Susan touched it with her hand and was smart enough not to put her feet in. We decided it was the second prettiest falls of the day.
We continued our trek down the river and saw the beautiful river valley. At Cedar Lock we drove across the Bridge
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The sisters at Multomah of the Gods but we had the devil behind us beeping at us to go faster. Pam got another state as the other side of the bridge is in Washington. We park to get pictures and Pam locks the door. Little good that did since my window was down, but hey… We head back over the bridge and Susan spots an OPEN fruit stand. We stop. Oh yes, they have the Washington cherries and we buy some of them, but then the lady gives us a couple of the blueberries. Wow, these are great. We buy some of them too even though we bought some today at the store. After the sweetness of these fresh ones, we know the Walmart ones will just not taste as good. Oh my, the cherries were great, really, really great. We head on back to the highway and onto our last falls, Starvation Creek Falls. This one was just a short hike but you could not see the entire falls. There is a large bolder at the bottom that you can’t see thru but the top of the falls is great. Walking back, we see what looks like blueberries, but the leaves look like
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horsetail falls holly leaves. Of course, once we get back in the van, I google and find out these are edible and are Oregon Grapes. We didn’t try them.
We drive down the interstate a bit further and see a lot of wind surfers on the river, I’ve never seen that many at one time. After that we then head off onto another highway that will take us back to Portland but around Mt Hood. We see many beautiful views of the Mountain and luckily stop at a couple to get some shots, because as we got closer, you couldn’t see the mountain for all the trees. The drive is then still pretty but I would have loved to have seen more of the mountain. We did pass a truck carrying a truck that was carrying a load of wood. It looked funny.
Finally we broke out of the trees and got more views of Mt Hood. We drove up to the ski area, but it was closed and we couldn’t get close. We then found one of the melt run off areas and stopped again for more views and pictures. Next we headed towards our hotel. We traveled thru
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old road tunnel many small towns but our favorite was Boring.
Yes, there is a town, Boring Oregon. Turns out they have a sister town in Scotland called Dull. Too bad we aren’t here on the 9
th of August for Boring and Dull Day. But this town took their name to heart. There is Boring Brewery (the sign has a person yawning). There is the “not so Boring Grill” and of course my favorite the Boring and Dull Day Care center. Now, like last year, I bought my granddaughter a stuffed animal to take pictures with along the trip. She will get the animal after the trip and pictures of it doing activities during the trip. This year’s animal is Ellie the elephant. Well, I kept forgetting about Ellie today so Ellie wanted a picture by the sign. Finally she got her “boring” picture because she said today was Boring for her since I forgot her most of the time.
Onto the hotel after that and we checked in and made sandwiches for dinner and worked on 2 days of the blogs. But Travelblog.org seems to be down so I can’t post them tonight.
I’m back…. So, I finished up
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Pam getting her feet wet at Horsetail falls the blogs and Susan was going to edit them so I went down to get a glass of wine at the bar. I head downstairs, its 9:50. What, the bar closes on a Sat night at 9:00?? Seriously!!! Ok, back to the elevator. A couple walks up behind me, and asks how is my day. I said “great until a few minutes ago. All I wanted was a glass of wine”. Well come up to our room. I have a bottle of white and my wife doesn’t like it and I’ll give you a glass. They seem to love my “southern accent”. I head up to their room and they have beer glasses from the hotel and open the bottle and pour me a glass. Really, I can’t believe things like this happens to me all the time. So I show back up in the room and Susan and Pam look at me and I tell them the story. They sure were wondering where I got this funny, large, glass of wine. I decided I had to add it to the blog.
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Barbara Fox
non-member comment
Yikes
All those dead ends or rather parking lots. Who would'a thought? The scenery, however, looks like it is worth it. Growing up in the southwest, we occasionally went to Oregon and WA. Fantastic country. Looking forward to the next blog. Oh....Jerry is doing fine, though he misses you. (He went to Alyssa and Miranda's pre-party.)