Day 7 - Oregon or bust

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Today our drive took us through some extremely beautiful country. We started in Boise and ended in Portland. Since we didn't get in until late, and we left again just after breakfast, we didn't get any Idaho potatoes on our way through.

Our first stop of the day was the The National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center. We have a National Park pass which is great. We can stop somewhere and not feel obligated to spend enough time to try and feel like we got our money's worth out of the stop. Although the movie was too long for us, it was great to learn some additional history and misconceptions about the Oregon trail. It was interesting seeing many of the places that we had recently driven through on our trip this far.

We enjoyed walking through the museum (but we went backwards when we came out of the movie). The museum is designed for you to start on the left side and come out on the right. As an American, walking in to an area on the right side seems more natural, so that was where we started.

After walking through the museum, we walked around the wagon replicas that they had outside. Melissa had wanted to do try one of the "load the wagon" games in the museum, but we told her she could just help Scott and Ron load the van at one of our many stops to come. We were talking about how crazy the pioneers would think we were. Our van was stacked to the roof, but we only carried enough water for a day or so and some junk food. The rest was clothing, books, kitchen stuff we would not use on our trip, and electronics. Times have really changed. There was an RV parked in the parking lot as well. I took a picture of it as well to demonstrate more the differences between traveling then and now.

I have included a panorama shot that I missed on lining up, but I don't have another shot like it, so it will have to do for now. I had Ron take some pictures of the cows on the hillside with his super zoom lens since they just look like black spots on my camera. When I first saw the cows standing in the low brush on one of the hillsides while we were driving, I didn't realize what they were.

After the interpretive center, we crossed the Columbia River and went to Stone Henge in WA. Melissa thought it would be boring since it was made of concrete, but we had fun, especially playing hide and go seek. Scott counted while we hid. The funny thing is, I was taking a panoramic picture and wasn't even trying and I was the last person he found. 😊

We really enjoyed our drive along the Historic Columbia River Highway . I was sad when I was doing a last minute check on our drive and saw that one section of the road was closed and we wouldn't be able to see Vista House, but the other falls and the view from the Rowena loops and crest made up for it. If you are going here, be sure to do both sections of the historic highway. Many people only do the section farther west. I had a hard time finding driving directions and information on the historic highway. Here is a site I found after our drive. It replaced the one where I got most of our info before the drive.

Tonight we stayed at a Residence Inn and had a two bedroom suite again. The biggest drawback here was being close to transportation. Luckily, our room was located so that we didn't hear the commuter train coming and going, but we did hear some very loud planes that shook the building.

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