The Columbia River Gorge - Day 9

We started the day leaving Nampa, Id and headed into Oregon. Eastern Oregon is still desert. Lots of driving and not much interesting. There are a few green spots along the way, but mostly, I think it reminds me of the moon. Funny tonight I saw a re-enactment of the Apollo 11 moon landing on History Channel and that is what one of them said. The moon reminded them of the high desert in the United States.

We had lunch in Pendleton, Oregon. It's a nice little town that reminded me of Finday or many Ohio towns. We ate at Como's Corner Bistro. As you drive into Pendleton, you are up on the high ground, you can see the town and the interstate coming in and leaving the town at the other end. What you can't see is a 6% grade between you and the town. After winding down the side of the mountain, you finally arrive in Pendleton.

The whole day changed when we reached the Columbia River. The first thing we saw was a barge. Bob's mother loved to go down to the Ohio River and watch the barges go up and down the river. She would have loved seeing the Columbia and all it's glory, but she really would have loved the barges. Her dad had a boat that he used to take out on the Allegheny!

In addition to barges, we saw skidoo's, windsurfers, speedboats, fishermen, and some sort of parasail surfing. The river is very wide. It gets prettier as we head toward Portland and the evergreen trees reappear. At one place we stopped it said it rains 50-75 inches a year in Portland, but only 14 inches in The Dalles, 84 miles east.

We also came around the bend and boom, there was Mt. Hood towering over the road, the way Mr. Ranier does in Seattle. Then as we stopped in Hood River, we saw what we think was Mt. St. Helens.

But the best stop of the day was the dam and locks at Bonneville Locks and Dam. A barge was just leaving the lock as we arrived. But the spillway, the locks and the fish ladders were fantastic. The fish ladder was especially interesting. We didn't see any fish jumping, but there was a place in the basement of the visitor's center to watch the fish in the ladder! .


In addition to the salmon in the ladder there was a eel in the ladder. Sarah took a great picture of it with Maria's assistance.





















We stopped at Multnomah Falls which were very pretty. We didn't walk up to that bridge behind us.