2008 – Week 7



Tuesday, June 10, 2008:
It rained lightly all night in Colfax, not enough to get the pavement beneath the trees wet, but it was cold. The Strevys picked us up at 9:00am, and we went to breakfast at a local diner. While we were having breakfast, Dick noticed that it was snowing outside. We returned to the RV to watch the videos of the whitewater rafting in Crouch ID while Susie walked Daisy. They had planned to take us to Steptoe Butte, but it looked as if the clouds were way too low. However, as we were watching the videos, the sky began to clear and off we went. This is a geologic feature that sticks through the good topsoil and provides a great view of the Palouse farming area. The visibility was great until we had driven about 100 feet from the top then we ran into the bottom of the cloud layer. Every so often we’d get a break, and I’d try to take a picture only I wasn’t fast enough. We called it quits, drove down about 100 feet and turned around when the clouds seem to break. Back up to the top, but it really wasn’t clearing. We drove down, stopping every so often to take pictures when the opportunity came. The Palouse farming area looks great from ground but even better from the Steptoe Butte.
We went back to the RV where we were dropped off, spent the afternoon looking at the weather on the internet and trying to work on our blogs. I noticed a severe weather watch in the area we planned to travel tomorrow – 6 inches of blowing snow. I guess we’ll have to take a good look tomorrow before we set out. We went to the Strevys’ for a delicious steak, baked potato and salad dinner (with a few beers thrown in).

Wednesday, June 11, 2008:
Up at 7:00am to a cloudy (again) sky, and the wind blowing hard. At 9:00am it looked a bit promising, and by the time we left Colfax at 10:45, we were feeling good about our prospects. From Colfax we followed WA26 south and west through the Palouse farming area to Dusty, then WA127 to Dodge and then US12 to Walla Walla. The elevation of Colfax is about 2,000 feet and we gently descended to about 1,600 feet where we took a dip to 600 feet to cross the Snake River, rose again to 1,200 feet and then dropped back to about 900 feet at Walla Walla. The further we drove, the better the weather. We saw fields of wheat and peas and pastures of cattle, bison, llamas, yaks and horses. There were some small airfields with several private planes, some of which could have been airworthy but probably not. I still don’t understand how they manage to farm this land without turning the equipment and damaging both themselves and the equipment. Must be great equipment designers and operators. We saw a hard working bicyclist in the hills. Soon all the clouds were gone and the sky a brilliant blue. We spent time in Walla Walla walking around the city and enjoyed the efforts of the art community in placing sculpture around the city. The Art Museum in Walla Walla was originally a Carnegie Library and was converted in 1971. Before we completely left Walla Walla, we went to the Whitman Mission National Historic Site. The Whitmans were missionaries and provided service to the emigrants heading west on the Oregon Trail, a section of which we walked. They were killed by the Indians who blamed them for bringing “white man’s disease” (measles) to the area and causing the death of nearly half of the Cayuse tribe. West of Walla Walla, a series of wind farms ran along a ridge to the south of US12, stopping just to the east of the Columbia River. I was late looking at the odometer, but the lines of turbines stretched 7 miles before we lost sight of them just before we joined the Columbia River. We followed the Columbia west to the McNary Dam at the town of Umatilla OR, where we crossed the river and pulled in to a Corp of Engineer Campground. There are not many campgrounds sponsored by the Corp, but they are nice and generally in quiet locations (however we can hear train whistles in the background. The hot showers and sunshine were greatly appreciated.

Thursday, June 12, 2008:
Ah, the first morning in a bit more than 2 weeks we awoke to clear skies and temperatures above 55 degrees! We did the usual things and left the campground at 10:45am and headed west to the town of Maryhill WA and the Maryhill State Park with the hopes of being able to get a place for 3 nights to carry us through the weekend. We drove along the WA side of the Columbia River on WA14. The Columbia River has so many dams that from a distance it seems quite placid, more like a lake, but when we stopped to take a picture and looked back at one of the dams and saw the water coming over the spillway, we realized it was not as quiet as it looked. On the south bank of the river there is a single-track railroad and an Interstate. On the north side there is another single-track railroad. We saw a string of barges being pushed upstream, probably to one of the many grain storage facilities on the river for delivery to one of the shipping locations downstream. We later learned that 40% of the wheat produced in the US passes through the Columbia River Gorge before being shipped from Portland OR. The banks of the Columbia are volcanic rock and quite rugged and beautiful with the sunlight striking at different angles as the river flows west. We pulled into the Maryhill SP and found a spot for the night but not for 3 days. We took the spot with the Columbia River on our doorstep and realized that despite the numerous dams it still is a very fast flowing river. The navigation buoys are tilted at 45 degrees due to the current. During the late afternoon we went to tour the Maryhill Museum of Art. This facility was originally planned as a private residence for the Pacific Northwest entrepreneur Sam Hill who, in 1907, purchased more than 5,000 acres along the Columbia River to start an agricultural community. Construction began in 1914. When the planned agricultural community didn’t materialize, he was convinced to turn it into an art museum that was dedicated in 1926 but did not open until 1940. There is a permanent exhibit of work by Auguste Rodin, 100 unique chess sets, artifacts from the Native People of NA, orthodox religious icons and Sam Hill’s life. This was the first time we had seen an exhibit showing Native Americans wearing baskets as caps on their heads in addition to raincoats made from woven strips of bark. Other exhibits are rotated through the Museum. The surrounding lands are still owned by the Museum and leased to ranchers and farmers. Hill also built a replica of Stonehenge as a World War I memorial. We did not stop as we had seen the original on our honeymoon in 1967. Peacocks roamed the Museum grounds and were a treat to the visiting children.
Back to the Park, a quick dinner, a swim for Daisy and then a trip to the Goldendale Observatory, a Washington State Park located on the plateau north of the Columbia River. This Observatory is a teaching center for backyard astronomers and not by college and university students for research. This was a requirement of the 4 men who built the telescope, including hand grinding the glass lens themselves. The lens-grinding machine was on display, and there wasn’t anyone at the presentation who believed that anyone could grind glass to the proper tolerances with what appeared to be apiece of junk. It was a beautiful night with no clouds and little moisture in the air. The only negative was that the moon was more than 1/2 full and bright as could be. Anyway, we viewed the planet Saturn, seeing the rings plus one moon. We also looked at planet Jupiter seeing 3 moons and last of all viewed star clusters 35,000 light-years away. You can do the math, but (as a hint) a light-year is the distance a particle of light travels in one year at a speed of 186,000 mile/second. We stayed until 11:30pm and return to the State Park. It was a great day (and night).


Friday, June 13, 2008:
Another morning with a bright blue sky and strong winds from the west. We had breakfast and Daisy went swimming before we departed the State Park to find new facilities for tonight and Saturday night. We signed in to Columbia Hills State Park, formerly Horsethief State Park, (a name change so recent that the locals still call it Horsethief). On 10/24/1805 Lewis and Clark stayed at this Native American Village named Nix-lui-dix (The Trading Place) on the way west to the Pacific Ocean, just before they went through the section identified by the French as “Dalles”. They also stopped here on their way back east on 4/19-20/1806. On 4/19/1806, the first salmon returned to spawn and the Native Americans would start fishing in the next few days. The big activity of the day was a trip to the Columbia Gorge River Center a few miles west of the city of The Dalles in OR. The building has 2 main sections, one the Discovery Center and the second the history of Wasco County in OR. We had a geology lesson on how and why the southeast section of Washington has such terrain and is so good for farming. Melting glaciers creating Missoula Lake behind icedams that eventually melted allowing as much water as is in Lake Ontario and Lake Erie to flood the entire southeast section of the State of Washington. Huge boulders, sand and topsoils were carried by this flood and as the water spread and slowed these materials were dropped. As we have driven through this section of Washington, we have seen random big rocks sitting in very odd places. The geology community calls these “erratics”. We had a late lunch there and that was good. It is definitely worth visiting if you come this way. On the way back to the State Park, we stopped at the Corp of Engineer dam named “The Dalles”. This dam is very large and was completed in 1957. The electric output is 2.1 million kilowatts, enough to power 800,000 homes or power 2 cities the size of Portland OR. It still is a very controversial dam with the Native Americans because, when it was activated, the Celilo Falls were covered and the Native Americans’ most prolific source of salmon was gone. We asked numerous questions about how the dam accommodated the salmon and were shown the 2 large fish ladders that help them by-pass the dam. I asked about the fingerling and was told that they have a good record of survival as they pass through the dam on the way to the Pacific Ocean. I don’t know how you measure this, but I suppose advances have been made over the years. It was about 75 degrees all day without a cloud in the sky and wind from the west at such a velocity I would not want to be sailing our Lightning.

Saturday, June 14, 2008:
I am not sure I should be saying this, but another great day. We drove to the town of Hood River to see if the boardsailors and kiteboarders were active. The town is at the junction of the Columbia and Hood Rivers. They were, and it was a fascinating site to us who are used to keeping our boats in the water at all times. The kiteboarders had their boats out of the water often, to a height of 20 or more feet and a distance of 50 feet.
Some of you have children who do this sport, and you should go see this action. The boardsailors were racing back and forth across the river, but we did not see and jumping and flying activity probably because the river wasn’t rough enough and the winds were below 30. While we were sitting outside, we noticed that Daisy had moved into the front passenger seat and was watching all the action with great interest. There were dogs playing in the shallows (as was Daisy) plus numerous kids even though the water was cold. We watched for about 2 hours and then started driving to the Timberline Lodge on the south slope of Mt Hood.
This lodge was built by the Civilian Conservation Corp from 1936-1938 and is at an elevation 6,000 feet, the elevation at which trees cease growing on the mountain. The road to the Timberline Lodge, at the lower elevations, runs through valleys that are very prolific providers of fruits. There were numerous fruit stands but we decided to stop on the way back, a bad mistake. As we reached an elevation of about 3,000 feet, we noticed snow in the woods and realized the grey stuff on the shoulders of the road was actually snow covered with stone dust that had been spread to keep the roads safe. When we arrived at the Lodge, there was an abundance of snow, and we learned that this is the only place in the US where you can sky all year. We talked to 2 members of the Ski Patrol and learned that to ski during the summer at the higher elevations, you climb about halfway up, sleep in tents and then climb the remainder in the early morning as the snow had refrozen and traction was OK. We told them that this was quite a day foe us, watching sailing at noon and skiing in the afternoon. Their response was “That’s the Northwest!” and asked where we were from. When we said Baltimore MD, they nodded their heads in understanding. We toured as much of the Lodge as possible. The structure is wonderful, and all the special carvings and detail work is in amazingly great shape considering the building is 70 years old. We drove home, stopping in The Dalles for dinner. The SP is full, and it was a good decision to pay in advance for 2 nights. I think Daisy went for at least 4 swims today. She seems to have recovered completely, and we are convinced that altitude is the problem.

Sunday, June 15, 2008:
We left the SP at 10:30, heading towards Bonneville Dam, but first we had to stop at Hood River to check out the windboarding and kiteboarding scene. It was blowing harder than Saturday, and we expected some excitement. When we arrived, we noticed that the Columbia River was lower than the day before by about 2 feet, ad the action had moved downriver about 1/4 mile. A few kiteboards went down the Hood River, doing jumps and turns for all to view. Then we noticed a person who was having a bit of trouble. He lost control of the kite, he and the board became separated and all of a sudden he was in the river being pulled upstream against the current. He was struggling with the kite, and then one of the kiteboarders who had been doing leaps and turns came to his aid. By this time the person and the kite had become separated. I’m not sure how much all these pieces cost, but I wouldn’t like to lose them. The expert kiteboarder (and I don’t use that term loosely) managed to grab the kite and was well on his way to bringing it to the Oregon shore when a PWC showed up and tried to take over. The attempt was unsuccessful and the kite ended up on the rocky Washington shore. About 10 minutes later, we noticed that the expert had managed to maneuver his kite and board next to the lost kite, pick it up and carry it back to the Oregon shore. When he got to the Oregon shore, the owner of the kite was missing, so he disabled the kite and covered it with sand so it wouldn’t blow away and continued kiteboarding for his own pleasure. We waited for a bit, but the owner of the kite never returned so we left and headed towards Bonneville. At Bonneville Dam, we saw a fish hatchery with rainbow trout and sturgeon. The sturgeon is a prehistoric fish and certainly looks it, having been around for 200 million years. The largest one in the pond was 11 feet long, but they can grow bigger and weigh 1,500 pounds.
The sturgeon below the Bonneville Dam, with access to the Pacific Ocean, are doing well, but the Fish and Game organizations have to watch carefully how many are taken each year. Most taken are for sport fishing, but I must be missing something as they seem very slow moving. The ones trapped, because they cannot use the fish ladders, are not doing as well. We then traveled a bit further west to the Ainsworth SP on the Oregon side of the river. Right now it seems a bit noisy, but the road traffic should tamper off later. The wind is less. As we have traveled from east to west down the Columbia River, we have noticed that there is less brown and much more green. The steep sides of the river boundaries are moving further away, and all seems softer. There are many more trees where we are now, which is about 30 miles east of Portland. We have been in cottonwoods for about a week now, and the male cottonwoods shed fuzzies that would, and probably did, make great pillow and mattress stuffing. When the wind blows, we feel as if we are in a snowstorm even as the temperature rises. Tomorrow we climb and visit some waterfalls, and then we are in Portland OR.


Monday, June 16, 2008:
Today turned out to be a bit different. It was clear and not windy. I took my shower and came back to the RV complaining that if the price for free showers was low water pressure, I’d rather pay. Susie took her shower and had the same problem. She have just rinsed out when there was a loud knock on the door, and the maintenance man hollered that the water system had just failed and there was no water. The plan for the day was to drive along the old US30 highway (now the Historic Columbia River Highway) and see 6 waterfalls before proceeding to a viewing point where we could see Mt Hood, Mt Jefferson, Mt Rainier, Mt St. Helens Mt Adams. All of these mountains are dormant volcanoes (well, some more dormant than others) and had a great impact on the creation of the Cascade Mountains. The first, Horsetail Falls, was adjacent to the road and easy to see. The water flow of the falls fit the name. We met a man who was wearing a t-shirt with a logo of Long Mountain. I asked if he had climbed the peak and he said that he had. One thing led to another, and he said that the trip he was taking was to have been with his son who had completed 2 tours in Iraq, came home safely and died of a heart attack just before he was to be discharged from the Army. There wasn’t much to say, but we were glad we were there with him because it was obvious he was in much pain. We encountered him several times during the day, and we greeted each other warmly. The second waterfall, Oneonta Falls, was back in the forest a bit, and Daisy, Susie and I started up the trail. We never found the falls, probably because we didn't go far enough, but we turned back because there are no aids to navigation up there, and we didn‘t think that spending the night in the forest was smart. We went to the third waterfall, Multnomah Falls, really two falls one below the other. This falls has been developed for tourists to see, eat snacks and buy stuff in the Gift Shop. On we went to the next waterfall, Wahkeena but never found the trailhead. The last waterfall was named Bridal Veil Falls,
and we were able to get close enough to the base moistened with the spray. According to a guide with an Elderhostel tour, this falls is one on the best and most visible examples of a rock formation named “columnar basalt”. Don’t worry; I too need to look it up. We continued west to the Crown Point Vista House that was completed in 1917 to provide shelter and sustenance to the people who were traveling the Columbia River Highway (the Historic was added later). I had seen this building in the late 1970’s. It was restored in 2004. You get great views of the Columbia River, to the east into the Gorge and to the west towards Portland. We had lunch there to build up our energy for the best part of the trip, up the Larch Mountain Road to the Sherrard Viewpoint Picnic Area (elevation 4,055 feet). We make the turn on to the road and saw a sign that announced “ROAD CLOSED 10 MILES AHEAD SNOW”. Being the disbeliever that I am, I told Susie to proceed, as it wasn’t possible that there was still snow on the road at that elevation. We had gone about 2 miles when we saw a maintenance worker, and he confirmed that the road was closed by snow. What a rotten deal! June 16, 2008 and still encountering snow. After turning around we headed west towards the Champoeg State Historic Area that has a campground. Champoeg is the site of the 1843 vote to form the first provisional government in the Pacific Northwest and the gateway to the Willamette River Valley. We didn’t expect much, but it is quite a large park and a family vacation area. We are not used to this type of park with smoke pollution and multitudes of kids riding bicycles everywhere. We’ll probably try to move to a more quiet part of the park tomorrow as we explore the historical pieces of the area. We may stay here or 2 nights and try to get into Portland on Wednesday if we can figure out where to park and get the rapid transit trains into downtown.