Ashford, WA

 We had an interesting stay at our AirBnB in Longview, WA....it was fine...it was just very "Brady Bunch Vintage".  The apartment was the entire basement of a 60's vintage house.  Plain birch plywood cabinets, low ceilings and believe it or not, sculpted olive green shag carpet!  Hard to believe but all of it was in excellent shape!  Like it had never been used much....I had seen the photos, of course, so I'm not complaining.  It was actually quite comfortable and exactly where we needed it to be for our trip.

 We're pretty good at packing everything up and getting on our way each morning.  Started the day by driving towards Mt. St. Helens.  

 

There are several visitor centers along the route and we stopped at them all.  We watched several short films and the displays were most informative.  We knew the basic story since we, of course, were alive and sentient in 1980 when it happened.

View from the first visitor center - still 40+ miles away so not a great view.

Driving towards the volcano, the views were spectacular.  

 

The wildflowers are in full display now.  

We took several short walks/hikes.  Cool under the trees but 90+ degrees in the sunshine!

Saw a small snake in the creek....he was sunning himself and paid no attention to us.

 

One mile trail promised "valley views"....this is all we got for a long trek out/back!

Getting closer to the volcano.

 

Sorry for the repetitious photos, it was just lovely.

 

As we drove thru the countryside towards Mt. Rainier in the early evening, we were treated to several beautiful lakes and rivers along the way.

 

It certainly is living up to our expectations!

 

Longview, WA

 We set out to tour the facilities at Bonneville and Cascade Locks before we head north into Washington again.  First up was the fishery....very nicely done!

 

We got to see the underwater viewing tank for sturgeon fish - they are cool but creepy looking fish that haven't evolved much for millennia.  They hardly even look real!

Outside they had various tanks for different species of fish.  This was a pond area with lovely, fat rainbow trout!

We saw a sign for a "live lamprey discussion".  We were given a nice tour by a Native American lady showing the importance of the Pacific Lamprey eel.  Cool but weird looking!

Next we went over to the Corps of Engineers visitor center.

 

After watching an intro film, we got to see the "fish ladder".  It helps the returning salmon/steelhead and shad bypass the locks and power plants so that they can safely return to their upstream spawning grounds. 

 

Neat to watch the fish swim and jump from one step to the next.

 

Inside the visitor center, we went to the lowest level and could see the fish swimming upstream .  Mostly shad and a few Steelheads.  The salmon won't be running until the fall.

The next area to tour was the hydro-electric power plant.

 

As many as 8 turbines run at a time, enough power generated (with no greenhouse gases emitted!) to power a city the size of Portland.  For size comparison, there is a worker in the lower left hand side of this photo.

Huge structures - this is the spillway where "excess water" is routed.  Was nice to stand in the mist since it's turned off rather warm here now.

Unfortunately for us, there were no boats going thru the lock while we were there. 

 

Going on to Cascade Locks, there is a cute tour boat.

Old lock structure with Native American fishing gear/platforms.

Time to head north - crossing one of the only 2 bridges closeby.  The Bridge of the Gods.  It was built in 1926 so it's 100 years old!

 

Cost $3 to cross!

We headed north on the National Forest Service roads in order to enjoy the scenery.  Stopped by a lovely creek.

 

And took in the beauty of a few mountain lakes during the couple of hour drive.

 

And found a beautiful overlook to view Mt. St. Helens. 

We're staying at an AirBnB in Longview just for the night.  Will explore Mt. St. Helens in depth tomorrow.
 

 

 

 BTW, I do need to acknowledge that we have sold Sojourn!!   As most of you already know, we're going to be doing quite a bit of travel that doesn't involve a sailboat for the next few years.  We decided that 8-9 years was enough with Sojourn - time to move on.  We put her with a broker and she sold pretty quickly.  We haven't met the new owners but they're already sailing her up to their home waters for the summer in the Chesapeake.  The new owners know many of the same "cruising folks" that we do, so that's a neat connection.  I'm sure I'll follow Sojourn occasionally just like I look at the flight tracks of all our old airplanes occasionally just to see where they are without us!!

Hood River, Oregon

Another busy touring/hiking day.  We started out by driving west along the Columbia River Gorge.  It's a beautiful wide waterway. 

 

Towering hills on both sides.

 

This is the power plant - we'll see it more in-depth on tomorrow's outing.

 

There is a long list of waterfalls to see today - Multnomah Falls is sortof the most famous and accessible one, right beside the highway.  Unfortunately, everyone else in a 4 state region picked today to see it.  No parking available and just a silly amount of folks.  We gave it a drive by.

Back on the road, we needed some petrol...this was a cool little general store.  They had everything from local honey to vodka.  In Oregon, they pump your fuel for you unless you protest.  The pump had a padlock on it when we drove up....maybe we were the first customer of the day since I believe this is an extremely safe area.  (Most of our AirBnB's come with the directions - "there's a key by the door if you want to use it".

 

We stopped at everything we could along a "scenic corridor map" I found online.  This was the view of the gorge from the Women's Forum overlook.

We drove 14 miles up Larch Mountain for the promised 360 degree views with 5 mountain peaks.  It did not disappoint!  

Beautiful wildflowers along the trail.

 

Driving down the mountain to the next vista.

Another stop - the Crown Point View House.  It is an observatory built in 1916 to honor the Lewis and Clark explorers.

 

The view from Crown Point.

 Next is going to be a bunch of photos of waterfalls and gorge views.  I've got to admit, I lost track of which-waterfall-was-which....Several of these were close by the historic highway 30 that we were traveling.  But a couple required a mile or more hike to see. My watch registered 18K steps for the day - and it registered 50 stories climbed.  I think that's a lot of up-and-down!

Not that it matters to anyone, I'm going to list them here so I can research them later if I want....

Laourell Falls (lower and upper), Sheppards Dell, Bridal Veil, Multnomah, Horsetail

  

 

Just a pretty bridge structure.

 

This is part of a historic roadway at Shepperds Dell falls.  Was built in 1910 - now is just a path to the falls.

 Views of the gorge. 

 

Nearing the end of the day, we saw a sign for the Mitchell Point Overlook.  A quick detour brought us to a cool area - I found this info later about it:   Originally built in 1915, its historic tunnel was a marvel carved with arched windows, but modern highway expansions forced its demolition in 1966. Today, the overlook features a stunningly faithful 655-foot replica tunnel designated exclusively for pedestrians and cyclists.

 Views from the overlook were stunning as well but the sun was getting pretty low....our clue that it's time to stop for the day.