A Trip Down the Gorge

We have a little list of hiking/camping destinations picked out for this year (there's never enough time to do everything we'd like!). First up was a trip down the Historic Columbia River Highway. We drove up to Sherrard Viewpoint, which we had never been to before. From there you have a 360 degree view of the Gorge and (sometimes) five mountains. Today Mt. Ranier and Mt. Jefferson were hiding. We'll have to go again on a totally clear day.  

Mt. St. Helens on the left and Mt. Adams on the right. I'm sorry they're not that easy to see. I'd like to experiment with using some filters to get clearer mountain pictures. 

Mt. Hood.

 Mt. St. Helens.

Looking back toward Portland.

 

After we came down from the viewpoint, we drove up the old highway to the Latourell Falls trail.

Lower Latourell Falls. 

To see Upper Latourell Falls, you have to hike about a mile up from the lower falls.

Another view of Upper Latourell.

The old highway crosses Latourell Creek on this neat bridge.

Lower Latourell Falls again.

We were going to visit some of the other watefalls, but by the time we finished at Latourell, things were getting really congested in the waterfall corridor! The parking for every waterfall--Shepherd's Dell, Wahkeena, Horsetail was close to filled to capacity. And of course, Multnomah was very busy. It took us quite a while just to drive by, because it was so congested. So, we didn't end up visiting any other waterfalls. Sigh. But there's always another time! Maybe this fall, when there aren't as many people. 

All in all, though, it was a great little excursion! 

Moulton Falls

I've had a goal to take some little photo excursions to local places. My Gorge waterfall pictures were the result of such a trip last fall. I've been wanting to do another one and decided to go to Moulton Falls this time. This past week was pretty wet, but I decided to get out there and try it out a little anyway (thanks to Mom for tagging along with me!) 

Here are a few favorite shots.

More Aerial Photography

  This past Friday Dad took me up with him on another flight. This time, since there weren't any clouds, we got to see all the mountains. Here are some of my favorite shots from the flight.

Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Rainier while flying over Clark County. 

Another shot looking north over Clark County.

The 205 bridge.

Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Rainier again.

I'm pretty sure this is Silver Star.

A couple snow melt waterfalls on the east side of Silver Star. They looked so tiny and delicate from the air.

So many trees!

I'm pretty sure that's Mt. Jefferson showing faintly on the horizon.

Mt. St. Helens, probably Goat Rocks to the right.

Mt. Adams

Mt. Hood

Looking into the Gorge near Stevenson and Carson.

From Carson and Stevenson, we flew across the Gorge toward Mt. Hood. This is a little lake on the Oregon side that hadn't thawed out yet. 

We flew pretty close to Mt. Hood!

This lake I was able to identify on Google Earth. I'm pretty sure it's called Lost Lake

I hope you enjoyed the tour. It was a wonderful day to go "flight-seeing"! 

Hello Seattle

Our family has lived in the Northwest for eight years now, but we've never "done" Seattle. We set that right on Thursday by taking a quick trip up for the day. There's definitely a lot left to see, but we had a fun time looking around downtown. 

First stop, Pike Place Market. For anyone who hasn't been there, I think Pike Place really needs to be visited to be understood, but it's basically a shopping district around a year-round farmer's market. It's such a weird jumble of old buildings and little cobblestone alleys--I think it would take a long time to explore it thoroughly. We got a very early start, so most of the stores weren't even open yet when we got there. It was fun looking around the empty alleys and watching the produce and fish stands set up.

I really liked looking at the produce stands. Everything was arranged so nicely.

Because we were at Pike Place so early, we had breakfast. We went to the Crumpet Shop and had--can you guess?--tea and crumpets (and a scone). It was tasty and definitely a new experience. I didn't really even know what a crumpet was before. 

Are you wondering what a crumpet is, too? It's kind of like a spongy biscuit and about the size of an English muffin. The Crumpet Shop serves them with various toppings. Mine had smooth, creamy ricotta and chocolate-hazelnut spread (think Nutella). 

After breakfast, we wandered around some more. 

Post Alley. Pike Place Chowder is on the left. We went there for lunch.

Down Under (another section of the market) wasn't open yet.

Seafood stands getting ready for the day. 

We left Pike Place to go take a look at the Space Needle. We didn't go up this time, but we just wanted to see it. 

The Chihuly glass exhibit is right next to the Space Needle. A couple large outdoor pieces are visible from outside of the exhibit. It looks pretty fascinating!

 Walking along Alaskan Way as we headed to the aquarium.

The aquarium is the blue building on the far left.

Next stop, the Seattle Aquarium.

 I really liked the tidal pool exhibit. All the animals in that area are from local waters, and you're allowed to touch them. 

A tiny little sea cucumber.

More sea cucumbers. 

Jellyfish

The octopus.

 Did you know this fact? I thought that was pretty interesting.

 This unhappy fish seems to be wishing for some attention.

The sea otters were very cute!

We looked around the gift shop before leaving. I kind of wanted to buy this mug, but anyone who drinks coffee at our house is probably glad I didn't. ;-)

After the aquarium, we headed back to Pike Place, which was now buzzing with people.

The original Pike Place Starbucks and a crowd gathering around some musicians.

After lunch and some more looking around Pike Place, we made our way down to the King Street Amtrak Station to catch our ride home. It was a long day, and we were definitely tired by the end, but we really enjoyed it!