O R E G O N

Columbia River Gorge ( see Kids' POV )

The Columbia River flows between Washington and Oregon, and it's responsible for creating one of America's few National Scenic Areas. The Columbia River Gorge is full of sweeping panoramas and glorious waterfalls. The most famous is Multnomah Falls, the second-highest year-round waterfall in the nation. But there are plenty of others to view and enjoy.

We ate lunch at the Multnomah Lodge, and it was pretty darn good. Bad luck was with us (as it so often is), however. The viewing area was being repaired or renovated or replaced or re-something, so we had to use a secondary trail that offered fewer views. Notably, we were unable to get a good view of the complete waterfall. Still, you can see from the photos below that we did all right.

More bad luck was evident when we went to see the Vista House. The unusally-shaped building was supposed to be one of the highlights of our trip, but it, too, was being repaired. The large fence put up during construction would've ruined any photos, so we made do with distant shots from other viewpoints. Just look carefully in the photos below.

The Gorge is a beautiful place. We always wish we had more time to see more things, and here was no exception. We didn't get to see all the waterfalls, and the haze didn't help us at all. Next time we'll take an extra day to really see everything.

By the way, if you see Latourell Falls (photo below), continue along the trail for a second waterfall. We didn't know, and we missed out on walking behind the falling water. D'oh!

 Crater Lake ( see Kids' POV )

As we said above, we unfortunately didn't get to see much because of the wildfire smoke. It was a strange feeling, knowing there was something magnificent to see, but being just barely unable to see it. It seemed as though a strong breeze would blow the haze away and grant us the incredible views we were searching for.

Oh, well. We can say this for sure: we could see just enough to know that we were missing out, and to know that we are definitely going back one day.

Here are a couple of photos to show you what we mean.

Champoeg State Heritage Area

It's hard for us to say much about our trip to this state park near Portland.  It rained nearly every moment of the three days we were there.  We were hardly able to do anything at all.  We stayed in our yurt almost the whole time.  (That's right, not a tent, not a cabin, a yurt.)  We were so miserable, we ended up leaving early.

We were able to make one trip, though, to the Tillamook Creamery in western Oregon.  We got to see the workers packing cheese, we got to sample a few cheeses, we got a pretty tasty cheeseburger, and some excellent ice cream.  That almost made up for the rest.  On the way back to our campground, we followed a highway that ascended through a somewhat mountainous area.  We found out later that we were lucky we left when we did, because the next day, there was an unusually strong snowstorm that hit the Portland area, and the roads were a mess.

Columbia River Gorge
They got the most enjoyment from the waterfalls and from looking down at the gorge from the higher viewpoints.

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Crater Lake
Our older child knew, just like we did, that the best sights were just beyond reach. It was amazing to see a four-year-old reaching the conclusion that there was something out there, if only we could see it.

Even so, they both had a good time. Local chipmunks are obviously not very shy around tourists, because as soon as we pulled into a viewpoint, one showed up looking for food. Sorry, chipmunk, no soup for you.

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