Oregon Trip: Day 6: Hiking to nowhere and a DAM!
So Day 6 we loaded up and headed out of town, stopping of course for our traditional "we're headed out of town" donut. Oh it was quite yummers. I had one and about 4 donut holes, which Chad tells me is equal to another donut. "But more crunchy surface area per square inch," I said. To which Chad had no argument.
The Falls
We drove back through Portland and pulled in at Multanomah Falls. We'd been planning this little adventure all trip. We are going to hike up and walk behind the waterfall. That's right behind. It's a fond memory of Chad's, the hiking behind the waterfall. A childhood memory.
About 1/2 mile up the trail, with nary a drop of water in sight, I decided to ask how long ago Chad hiked behind the waterfall. To the best of his recollection he was Grace's age. Uh huh, so that was, what? At least 25 years ago? A long hike, a lot of huffing and puffing and whining, oh and sweating, well we turned back. We were standing at the 1 mile marker with no end in sight. We came down the mountain and stood in the spray on the observation bridge. That felt good! Then we came the rest of the way down and I made Chad go inside the Information office and ask how you get to the place where you can walk behind the waterfall.
"Oh I heard you used to be able to do that, but they haven't let you go behind it, for gosh, it's got to be 25 years."
Uh huh.
We had lunch at the little restaurant there, which was frankly wretched and headed back for the car.
The adventure was not a total loss, however. It was beautiful. The view was spectacular, the waterfall was impressive, the hike wasn't that bad (more like we just weren't prepared for it.) Plus these are the kinds of experiences upon which family legends are built. We'll be telling this story for a while and everyone's impression of Brynn HUFFING as she stalked up the hill and her many plaintive wails "I HATE walking!" "Why can't this waterfall have an elevator?" oh, yes these will live on in infamy.
Oh and at the bottom there was a sign that sad top of the falls 1.0 miles. Well I was standing at mile marker 1.0 and I saw no waterfall. So either that decimal is out of place or they mean 1.0 straight up and bring your repeling gear.
So this is how they make electricity!
On a bit of a lark, we decided to stop at Bonneville Dam. And while it makes the Homeland Security people rather skiddish you can tour the dam. First you must pull past a 12 year old security guard with braces who asks you, with as much menace as he can muster, if you have any weapons in your car.
Now if you are like me, you will be really tempted to say "Not unless you call those 10 bricks of C-4 in my trunk weapons." But if like me you don't want your 5 year old to go to prison, you will just say nope.
You will then drive across the actual dam, which is way cool. You will pull into the visitor center parking lot and go inside where you can take a DAM tour with a real live DAM tour guide! I'm not making this up. To their credit the people at the dam are very tongue in cheek. Rather than be weary of the endless Dam jokes they hear everyday they really embrace them. It's very fun.
So anyway, after a very cool object lesson about how a dam works to generate electricity, you get to walk over to the actual dam and tour the power house! I realize I'm way geeking out about a Dam right now, but it was just so Dam interesting. Sorry...if you were a dam tour guide you would have loved that joke.
So here's something I learned about dams. When you build a dam you get a good clean energy source, but you have two problems to deal with. What do you do about boats that want to cross? Answer? Build a lock (AKA a boat water elevator. Very cool, though we had to wait for one to cross and were feeling very glad that they built a new lock in the early 90s, cutting the time of the process from 2 hours to only 30 mins. When a giant tugboat is trying to cross through the Dam, your tiny Kia ain't going anywhere. So just relax.)
Problem 2 is how do you help the fish cross?
Do you know what Salmon thinks when he swims all the way back from the ocean and makes it to Bonneville? Dam! (That was the official joke of the tour. I'm still chuckling over it.) Anyway a series of fish ladders help the adult fish navigate past the dam and swim back to their birthplace. It's quite a system. You can go downstairs and observe the fish swimming through this big windows. And, wow. I've always thought swimming against the current was hard, but I have a whole new respect for fish. It looks like torture.
You know what else seems like torture? Being a fish counter. They actually count every fish that swims through that dam, 24 hours a day. Can you imagine? All the technology we have created and the best solution for counting fish that pass through the dam is sitting a person in a dark room and having them count fish for 8 hours a day. I'd poke my eyes out. But wow, they not only count they count by types of fish! They had several little tricks to help them, but still 17,000 + salmon came through Bonneville dam last year and a human being counted every single one.
Hatch already
After the dam, we made a quick stop at the fish hatchery, on the recommendation of one of the guides. He must love a simpler life, because after the excitement of electricity and boat locks and GIANT fish swimming against insane currents, the fish hatchery is literally fish in a pond. Snoozefest. Though the girls got to feed trout and a bird tried to peck Chad in an effort to get the fish food. That livened things up a bit. :)
Round 'em Up
We then drove. The long drive. Getting home involves at least one long drive and this was it. The night before I tried mightily to get a hotel room in Pendleton. It would have been reasonable drive, but literally every hotel was booked. I could find nothing. Not one single room, but by the time we got to Pendleton we we really need to stretch and eat, so we went back to JITB. Now something was clearly going on in Pendleton...I looked inside JITB and saw a sea of cowboy hats. "Chad, pendleton has been invaded by cowboys!"
Oh yeah, rodeo. Literally people everywhere you looked...cow people. Parking lots full of RVs and streets teaming with people. It was crazy. So we ate and set off for Ontario, which by map isn't that far, but in actual driving...yowzers. We pulled in, dragged the girls upstairs and were all out for the count in under 30 mins.
The Falls
We drove back through Portland and pulled in at Multanomah Falls. We'd been planning this little adventure all trip. We are going to hike up and walk behind the waterfall. That's right behind. It's a fond memory of Chad's, the hiking behind the waterfall. A childhood memory.
About 1/2 mile up the trail, with nary a drop of water in sight, I decided to ask how long ago Chad hiked behind the waterfall. To the best of his recollection he was Grace's age. Uh huh, so that was, what? At least 25 years ago? A long hike, a lot of huffing and puffing and whining, oh and sweating, well we turned back. We were standing at the 1 mile marker with no end in sight. We came down the mountain and stood in the spray on the observation bridge. That felt good! Then we came the rest of the way down and I made Chad go inside the Information office and ask how you get to the place where you can walk behind the waterfall.
"Oh I heard you used to be able to do that, but they haven't let you go behind it, for gosh, it's got to be 25 years."
Uh huh.
We had lunch at the little restaurant there, which was frankly wretched and headed back for the car.
The adventure was not a total loss, however. It was beautiful. The view was spectacular, the waterfall was impressive, the hike wasn't that bad (more like we just weren't prepared for it.) Plus these are the kinds of experiences upon which family legends are built. We'll be telling this story for a while and everyone's impression of Brynn HUFFING as she stalked up the hill and her many plaintive wails "I HATE walking!" "Why can't this waterfall have an elevator?" oh, yes these will live on in infamy.
Oh and at the bottom there was a sign that sad top of the falls 1.0 miles. Well I was standing at mile marker 1.0 and I saw no waterfall. So either that decimal is out of place or they mean 1.0 straight up and bring your repeling gear.
So this is how they make electricity!
On a bit of a lark, we decided to stop at Bonneville Dam. And while it makes the Homeland Security people rather skiddish you can tour the dam. First you must pull past a 12 year old security guard with braces who asks you, with as much menace as he can muster, if you have any weapons in your car.
Now if you are like me, you will be really tempted to say "Not unless you call those 10 bricks of C-4 in my trunk weapons." But if like me you don't want your 5 year old to go to prison, you will just say nope.
You will then drive across the actual dam, which is way cool. You will pull into the visitor center parking lot and go inside where you can take a DAM tour with a real live DAM tour guide! I'm not making this up. To their credit the people at the dam are very tongue in cheek. Rather than be weary of the endless Dam jokes they hear everyday they really embrace them. It's very fun.
So anyway, after a very cool object lesson about how a dam works to generate electricity, you get to walk over to the actual dam and tour the power house! I realize I'm way geeking out about a Dam right now, but it was just so Dam interesting. Sorry...if you were a dam tour guide you would have loved that joke.
So here's something I learned about dams. When you build a dam you get a good clean energy source, but you have two problems to deal with. What do you do about boats that want to cross? Answer? Build a lock (AKA a boat water elevator. Very cool, though we had to wait for one to cross and were feeling very glad that they built a new lock in the early 90s, cutting the time of the process from 2 hours to only 30 mins. When a giant tugboat is trying to cross through the Dam, your tiny Kia ain't going anywhere. So just relax.)
Problem 2 is how do you help the fish cross?
Do you know what Salmon thinks when he swims all the way back from the ocean and makes it to Bonneville? Dam! (That was the official joke of the tour. I'm still chuckling over it.) Anyway a series of fish ladders help the adult fish navigate past the dam and swim back to their birthplace. It's quite a system. You can go downstairs and observe the fish swimming through this big windows. And, wow. I've always thought swimming against the current was hard, but I have a whole new respect for fish. It looks like torture.
You know what else seems like torture? Being a fish counter. They actually count every fish that swims through that dam, 24 hours a day. Can you imagine? All the technology we have created and the best solution for counting fish that pass through the dam is sitting a person in a dark room and having them count fish for 8 hours a day. I'd poke my eyes out. But wow, they not only count they count by types of fish! They had several little tricks to help them, but still 17,000 + salmon came through Bonneville dam last year and a human being counted every single one.
Hatch already
After the dam, we made a quick stop at the fish hatchery, on the recommendation of one of the guides. He must love a simpler life, because after the excitement of electricity and boat locks and GIANT fish swimming against insane currents, the fish hatchery is literally fish in a pond. Snoozefest. Though the girls got to feed trout and a bird tried to peck Chad in an effort to get the fish food. That livened things up a bit. :)
Round 'em Up
We then drove. The long drive. Getting home involves at least one long drive and this was it. The night before I tried mightily to get a hotel room in Pendleton. It would have been reasonable drive, but literally every hotel was booked. I could find nothing. Not one single room, but by the time we got to Pendleton we we really need to stretch and eat, so we went back to JITB. Now something was clearly going on in Pendleton...I looked inside JITB and saw a sea of cowboy hats. "Chad, pendleton has been invaded by cowboys!"
Oh yeah, rodeo. Literally people everywhere you looked...cow people. Parking lots full of RVs and streets teaming with people. It was crazy. So we ate and set off for Ontario, which by map isn't that far, but in actual driving...yowzers. We pulled in, dragged the girls upstairs and were all out for the count in under 30 mins.
Comments
Glad you guys had a good time.
Holly
P.S. You can get Tillamook ice cream, butter, etc. at Winco.