5/11-17/17
Current location: Kozy Campground, Jackson Wyoming
We pulled into Mary and Dick’s driveway outside of Portland under bright sunny skies, their fifth day in a row without rain, which hadn’t happened since the beginning of January. Soon after arriving, we went on a walk around the neighborhood and through two parks. The Willamete River was high and running strong, a common thread with all of the rivers we’ve seen in Oregon, after a very rainy winter. Wednesday afternoon was spent catching up with some stories of recent travels. After dinner Aunt Mary and I attended the neighborhood book club, where we drank wine and chatted about books, while Uncle Dick and Eric drank beer and chatted about life’s adventures.
Thursday we headed into Portland in time for the guided tour around the Chinese Garden. I’ve visited a few Chinese Gardens before, but never with a guide. It was very interesting to learn about what it was that I was looking at and gained a greater appreciation of everything from the architecture, to the plants and masonry through out. After tea at the Gardens, we wandered around some of the stores in Portland before going back home.
Friday was wine country day. After taking Rooney for a quick run around the neighborhood, Mary and Dick brought us to Sokol Blasser, their go-to vineyard, for wine tasting. The rains of the past day and a half were intermittent and held off enough for us to have some views from the tasting room. Dinner Friday was a family event, with Kathy, Kendrick and Ben joining us.
It was great to see everyone and we look forward to being on the left coast with family nearby in Seattle and Portland. Our days were filled with stories of adventures, family, laughter and tons of recommendations for Washington and the Pacific Northwest.
After catching up with a friend over lunch in Portland, we decided to take one of our new recommendations and headed to the Columbia River Gorge. We passed several tall waterfalls, stopping at a few to take pictures. Camp was in the hills above the river and the train tracks.
In the morning, we continued along the gorge, stopping at the Bonneville Dam. We wandered through the visitor center and down into the bottom floor where the fish counting takes place. All dams along the Columbia River have fish ladders so the fish can return and swim upstream, around the dam. We saw a few large fish, however we were unsure what kind they were. The fish counters not only count the fish passing through the ladder, they determine what species and what sex they are as they pass the window in a matter of seconds. The view of the fish ladder from above looks like a maze for the fish. Each twist and turn in the ladder allows for the correct amount of water flow so the fish can make it upstream without too much difficulty. We stopped for a lunch beer at Thunder Island Brewing before crossing the Bridge of the Gods into Washington, our 40th state of the trip!
Seals playing/eating in the dam outlet
We have been hosted by some great family and friends and this continued in Seattle. We arrived at the Hudgins’ just after 7. Wren and Leigh are our good friend Alex’s parents, and were also our landlords for the past 6 years while we lived in the house in Golden. Their house would be our home base while we explored the Seattle area over the next few days. We broke up the greater Seattle area into 3 sections: east, west and north, to try and scope out areas we would be interested in moving to at the end of July. Don’t worry, our stay wasn’t filled with all work and no play. We got out for a run in the rain on Cougar Mountain and we were able to meet up with some friends for dinner on our last night in town.
We had a great time catching up with everyone we got to visit while in the Pac Northwest.We look forward to doing more together when we’re there in a few months!