Since I've jumped around a little bit, and to clarify for my regular readers and avid followers, this is the continuation of our trip to Oregon/Washington and follows
the first post (even though this says "day 1").
So after we left Ontario area, we headed up and across the state of Oregon into the Columbia River Gorge. I was surprised that besides a brief stint of trees, most of the drive was high desert type terrain. We kept waiting for the beautiful, lush, green forests we had seen in pictures and always pictured Oregon to be like. It wasn't until part way into the Gorge that it was what I had imagined it to be like (Russ was thinking more Flaming Gorge, with huge steep cliffs shooting up), but it was absolutely gorgeous! And the drive along the river was incredible! Our hotel was actually on the Washington side near a little town called Stevenson and it was the perfect setting. The hotel was called
Skamania Lodge, but for some reason Russ could never remember the name - Skamamish? Skamountain? Whatever. It was super nice and thanks to my dad, we got an awesome deal, no way we could have stayed there without it. So we are extremely grateful.
Onto our first day . . . (well our real first day we checked in, went to the pool for a bit and then went to bed, so that doesn't really count). We started out with the intent to drive about 40 min away to check out a view of Mt St Helens, but about 15 or 20 miles out we realized we were almost out of gas and there would be nothing when we got out there, and then how would we get back? So we decided to pull off and attempt one of the many hikes we had passed on our twisty road through the trees. Falls Creek Trail turned out to be a perfect hike . . .
Cool trees
Cool rocks to climb on (and in)
Cool bridges
And at the end, an AWESOME waterfall!
(Can you see them all the way down there!?)
We had our picnic by the falls before we hiked back down.
It was totally cool. Gorgeous falls and perfect weather, what more could you ask for? Super fun hike and the boys did great! Loved it!
After the hike (well, after Russ hiked halfway back up to get his glasses), we went back to the hotel to go swimming. We did this pretty much everyday, but I promise you won't have to see swimming pictures in every post. Just a few. :)
That night after dinner (and an interesting experience involving underwear), we went out to watch the kite boarders on the river. Apparently the Gorge is the kite-boarding capital of the world. It looked really fun, but was maybe even more fun to watch. We had the perfect spot on the dock, because we could see the whole river, but we were behind a little bend just out of the wind. We had fun seeing them jump, watching them crash, and hoping they didn't run over each other too much. It was a really good time!
UP NEXT: Lots of fish, another waterfall, and a new car . . . are you intrigued yet?
And riding bikes TO Salem Pond:
