Road Trip Day 3

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Today was a little exhausting but worth it. The Columbia River Gorge has some great views and waterfalls. We started out at the Vista House, where there is a stunning view of the river. Here's a picture of us on the balcony:

The pictures definitely don't do justice, but here's one view with Amy and Ethan perched on a rock:

We were pretty amused by this sign at the Vista House. We were very sure to keep a tight rein on our kids:


We drove along the Historic Columbia River Drive, and you can get an idea of how windy the road is on our GPS. No puking today, though.


This is a shot of the Latourell Falls. This was supposed to be a quick stop, but Kaylynn and Jeremy took off on a trail ahead of us that had no information on distance or anything, and so we went after them. It took a while for Dan to find them, and they had a little trouble finding their way back. While they were up there they saw another waterfall, but we haven't figured out which one it is yet:

We went on a short hike to Bridal Veil Falls, even though we had promised the kids no more hikes. We're entitled to change our minds, right?


The next major waterfall was Multnomah Falls. the second tallest year-round waterfall in the U.S. There's a cute little gift shop and restaurant here, and we sampled a little bit of fudge.


After going to enough waterfalls to make the kids never want to see a waterfall again, we stopped at the Bonneville Dam. I didn't get many good pictures here but it was pretty interesting. Here is Anna in front of the fish ladder, where the fish are able to bypass the dam and make it upstream. You can tell she finds the whole thing thrilling. By this time we had a few bad attitudes.



This is the inside of the powerhouse of the dam:

We also saw and drove over the Bridge of the Gods which took us into Washington momentarily, and then we drove back. Then we went to our hotel, went out for pizza to a place called Spooky's, set off the smoke alarm in the hotel room, plugged up the toilet, and are now watching Inkheart that we got from a nearby Redbox.
Random things to remember: Jeremy sliding down stair rail at dam and hurting himself where it hurts the worst, Jeremy taking the luggage cart down the stairs instead of the elevator, buying rings and bouncy balls, watching Inkheart in the hotel room, trip to Walmart and finding not one jacket or sweatshirt, bug bites, huge slugs.