Day 9 - Oregon City OR to Centralia WA



Day 9 - 25 June 2006 - Sunday

--- Starting in Oregon City, Oregon ---

Kristina's relatives have a beautiful backyard, it overlooks the Clackamas River:
Clackamas

We enjoyed our time visiting, but it was time to see more sights. We drove east, out and around the highest mountain in Oregon, Mount Hood:
Mount Hood

We then drove up toward The Dalles, and then back to Cascade Locks. This is the site of an old set of locks on the Columbia River; now flooded because of the Bonneville Dam. We crossed the river on the Bridge of the Gods (we never got an explanation for the name):
Bridge of the Gods

--- Entering Washington ---

We went to the visitor center of the Bonneville Dam. You could get a really good underwater view of the fish ladders, but you saw almost as many lampreys as you did salmon. When they built the second power generating unit, they actually uprooted and moved an entire town to make room.

We then drove back to Oregon.

--- Entering Oregon ---

We continued along the Columbia on I-84. Today was an extremely hot day, in the high 90s. This unusual heat was caused by the same weather pattern that caused the horrible flooding/rain back east. Because of the heat, all of the recreation sites were packed with people.

We saw some waterfalls along the way. Here is Horsetail Falls:
Horsetail Falls

Oneonta Falls came highly recommended to us. We parked and joined the massive throng heading for the falls. We felt like we were part of some disaster movie, with everyone methodically heading up the stream en masse. Here is the crowd carefully negotiating the log jam and rock jump:
Oneonta Log Jam

It turns out that to get to the falls you have to wade (sometimes waist-deep [a key thing to know beforehand]). I made it most of the way, but stopped just short of the falls because I had my camera and wallet on me. Everyone else made it the whole way:
Oneonta Falls

We made it safely back to the car, much wetter than when we set off. We passed by Multnomah Falls next:
Multnomah Falls

We dropped off Kristina's mother to do some more visiting, and explored the city of Portland a bit. (Portland, by the way, is named for Portland Maine. The two guys who founded it were from Portland ME and Boston MA... they flipped a coin to see whose hometown the new city would be named after). Then we went back, saw the relatives one last time, then continued on our trek north.

--- Entering Washington ---

We went to see Mount St Helens. It has been active lately, and we thought we saw smoke rising from it at times. Here is what it looks like:
Mount St Helens

We got there much too late to go to the visitor center. The terrain has mostly recovered from the eruption, but you can still see ash along the rivers. The regrown trees looked really strange and almost digital. All along the route were signs from the lumbering company telling when the trees had last been harvested.

We then backtracked and stayed for the night in Centralia, WA.

--- Ending in Centralia, Washington ---


Continue on to Day 10