Wednesday - Columbia River Gorge

I had made it full circle and was safely back in Portland. Not it was time to explore the gorge. I had three landmarks to see and do before I started my trip. On Saturday, when it felt like I had been gone a week, I still hadn't done any. Then I rafted, saw the big crater, and now it was time for the big falls, Multnomah. On the way I did stop and see Bridal Veil falls (I need to count up the lighthouses, rivers, mountains, and falls I saw at some point). Multnomah falls were the tallest of the falls I saw and the most picturesque though hard to capture fully without a ton of tourists in the way. Continuing up the river I had lunch in the town of Mt. Hood. I have to say I ate at some of prettiest places I could imagine. Overlooking the river you could see people kite sailing and sailboarding. After lunch I went down to take a closer look. The river was so incredibly windy, I could never imagine rowing on it. I did briefly considering coming back and kayaking on Thursday, but I got over that after I watched the choppy water for awhile and decided one way would be easy the other, really tough.

Tuesday

Tuesday was pretty much a travel day. I started off going through the town of Sisters which was supposed to have lots of cute little shops. It did, but I went through too early to enjoy them. I was ok with that, I already had wine to take home with me, didn't need anything more.
I then made my way to Clear Lake and Saquamie (?) Falls. Since I wasn't in a hurry, and I wasn't sneezing anymore, I decided to hike from the lake to the falls. I was getting to the point where I would look at the map of the trail, length, and difficulty to decided if seeing one more waterfall was worth it. It's was a lovely hike, first looking at the clear, clear lake than walking along side the river listening to the rapids. The falls were definitely worth seeing. Notice the rainbow in the picture.

I then headed to Portland. I thought I would go through Salem but the GPS took me through the ___ forest and Mt. Hood Forest along side the ___ river. It was a beautiful drive, full of the views I had come to Oregon for. The only downfall was the lack of gas stations and my dwindling tank. I made it through though, impressed with the Nissan Versa.

Crater Lake

So, I feel like I've been a bad blogger this trip. There was just so much to see, so many hikes, driving, that by the time I got to my hotel room, I was just beat. Plus there was the annoyance that for a few days when I sent my emails to post, they'd come back the next day as delayed. So here I am, on the long flight to Atlanta catching up on my posts and arranging/cleaning up my photos.

I have to say one enjoyable thing about Oregon was that they have no sales tax. I have been planning for months to buy a new laptop when I got back from vacation. Figure out the tax savings on that major investment, plus the convenience of an Apple Store, and you'll understand why I'm typing this on my new laptop. I managed to add it, plus two bottles of wine to my baggage with no problem.

If you don't know, that gorgeous blue lake in the picture is Crater Lake. As blue as it may seem in the picture, it's bluer. It is amazing, huge, blue, clear, I could go on. I have two travel quests, one is a water sport in every state (I"m up to11) the other is the National Parks (I'm up to 4 stamps in my park passport). If you look closely at pictures of the lake, you'll see some white streaks across it, that's pine pollen. Apparently, I am highly allergic to it. I enjoyed my day, not so sure the people around me did. Since at first I thought I was catching a cold from rafting I decided to hike up to the highest point and not hike down to the lake. I felt the view from the top would be the more memorable. That's my excuse at least. I hear that the hike down is ok, but it's straight back up. That does not sound like fun, even to be able to say I did it. I rafted, I hike up to the lighthouse, I hiked to the highest point in Portland, I could let one hike slide. I also took the trolley ride around the lake. It was two hours long and a ranger talked the whole time. I love listening to the rangers talk about their parks. The history of the park, hearing how the crater was formed, talking about the water and the experiments being done on it, hearing the native american lore, it was perfect.

On my way to the lake I traveled through the Rogue Forest and stopped to see falls on the way. Also well worth it.

I then made my way up to Bend for the night.

Sunday rafting

I'm going to write this, hopefully it will post, if not I'll post it tonight.
So... Sunday was devoted to rafting, seems like two thirds of the Griffiths had the same idea, just different rivers. Mine was the Rogue River, I have to look at a map but the shop was in merlin, they took me to galice where we continued down the river.
In my usual style I called that morning to see if there was room for me. The company had been recommended to me the day before on my wine trek. They did have room for me on the half day trip, perfect. Well.... Not that I'm prejudiced at all, but when I got there I found out it was a group of 16 Indians(?) and me. Uh oh, they were having a great time together getting ready, loud and in a language I didn't understand. I was there for the experience right, so no problem. Thankfully when we got off the shuttle he owner stopped me and the guides and said he was putting me on the raft that had started out that morning Nd we were joining up with. It was a family with three rowdy boys, and an older couple, I fit in perfectly. The guide, Richard, was great he joked with the boys, even dumped them a time or two. I could have taken a turn in the single kayak but I really didn't feel like having to think too much. Rafting was fun, a lazy ride down the river punctuated by minutes of thrilling white water. The large group, as predicted, had a great time with water fights the whole time. They did a lot more paddling then we did, which a guide at lunch said was actually a problem because the weren't on sync and he couldn't row. Guides had oars, we had paddles :) when we got close to the end Richard made some lasting memories for the boys and me by "eddying out" in the middle of some rapids so we could water gun attack the other boats. After he let them get way ahead of us he pulled over and let them rock jump, asking how we felt about rules and regulations. The bravest I got was to float for a bit outside the raft, purposefully, I didn't fall out. That water was breathtakingly cold! Wow!
A good day :$
Sent from my iPhone