We were excited to be a part of Shaila's wedding weekend in Oregon! We hadn't flown for 4 1/2 years (Disney 2016) and were excited to get back up in the air again! I have to admit though, that this paper-preferring ticket holder was hesitant to go all digital but I came to enjoy tracking our baggage, gates, and travel time on the app.
Checking out a Washington mountain peak in the distance!
We had a rental car for the week and when Chris saw that a Jeep was the same price as a mid-sized SUV, he opted for the Jeep! It was fun for the week but we don't foresee owning one in the future. :) We didn't necessarily enjoy the Portland traffic and it seemed, on a Friday afternoon, that everyone was headed out of town with us. We drove past lots of orchards and beautiful mountains. It's was a
pretty drive!
We stayed at a house on the beach with Scott and Mariah and Anthony's parents.
The bridal party stayed at a house on the river. Both houses were beautiful!
We enjoyed checking out the local beaches. These pretty purple shells (clam??) were everywhere.
So was driftwood! You'd have thought a whole boat load of logs had capsized nearby!
Those things along the shore are seals!!! Some of them were in the water but clearly felt safer to sun themselves on the side opposite of the people. They were just
hanging out with the seagulls and pelicans too!
The
beach was beautiful but VERY breezy and the water was VERY cold - better for looking at than getting in.
Make-shift shelters like these were all over the beach with evidence of fires in them. It was sad to see how prevalent homeless people were in the area.
We enjoyed lunch at Hwy 101 Burgers. The owner immediately decided that Owen was in charge when we walked in. He gave him a dollar (meant for the game machines) and even brought out his special sauce with Owen's name written in it! Owen was on Cloud 9 for a while after that!
There were a few glass blowing studios in town. It was incredible what they could create!
The kiln was crazy hot!!
Twisting the color and cutting off the end:
Here's the spot they picked out for the ceremony!
Thankfully the fam entertained me with all my selfie requests throughout the trip :)
How adventurous should we be on rocks the day of the wedding? Answer: not very adventurous!
Lots of seaweed, etc was washed up on the beach.
I loved this idea!!
Owen tried to make friends with an injured seagull. He sure has a heart for animals!
Chris is always looking for ways to give Scott a hard time ;)
These signs were all over the place!
Mariah mentioned that Seal Rock had the best tide pools she'd ever seen so we took a drive down to check them out. We hadn't checked the tide calendar so unfortunately it was high tide and there was nothing to see creature-wise. It was a nice rocky beach though and we enjoyed exploring a bit.
These
seagulls finding a feast from the fresh water reminded us of the seals in California that we saw during
our anniversary trip.
Chris and Owen braved the freezing water to
look for creatures at a possible tide pool covered by high tide. Owen came back drenched below the waist. His shorts dried by the heater in the Jeep on the drive back :)
When we left the coast, we headed toward Portland to meet a friend for dinner. In the weirdest of coincidences, I went to undergrad with her and Chris went to grad school with her. She'd recommended a few places in Portland since we had a bit of time. We ended up at the International Rose Test Garden which felt like a "Central Park" in the middle of a big city. They have over 10,000 rose bushes with 610 varieties.
It was beautiful! The pictures don't do it justice. We didn't get a picture with Jess but did enjoy a nice dinner at a kid-friendly brewery with outdoor seating. Due to new chefs there were errors in two of our meals (which neither of us complained about) and they gave each of us the correct items to go, so we got two meals out of it!
We headed to Cascade Locks for the next couple days in order to explore the Columbia River Gorge, waterfalls, and Mount Hood in that area. This was the view from our hotel room!
With an equally gorgeous view for breakfast each morning!
We spent our first day in that area checking out the waterfalls and views along the Historic Columbia River Highway. It runs beside I-84 but actually connects to it in very FEW places we found out. We started out with a beautiful drive to Sherrard Viewpoint where you could see 5 mountain peaks in the surrounding area. We were a bit nervous about making the 14-mile one-way "side trip" since it was so foggy for the first part of the drive. As we got above the fog, the sun came out and we decided to take the "top off" (aka sunroof) and enjoy the 70-degree weather! It ended up being a highlight of the trip for us for sure!
We enjoyed riding with the "top off" so we could see the treetops better. Here's a time lapse.
From the top you could see 5 different mountains (Mt Saint Helens, Mt Rainier, Mt Adams, Mt Hood, and Mt Jefferson)! It was quite the panoramic view being above the trees!
The cloud cover is the fog we drove through. It must just like to hang out above the Columbia River!
Beautiful wildflowers!
Our first waterfall stop was Latourell Falls.
Those little dots on the right are Chris and the kids! They endured quite a heavy mist to get behind it and came back soaked but smiling.
A short walk to Shepperds Dell waterfall.
Bridal Veil Falls
The hotel told us that we had to have tickets for 1-hr arrival slots for Multnomah Falls. We were on track to get there half-way through our time slot but there was no entry into the parking lot from the direction we were coming from on the scenic highway. It was a fairly narrow highway we were on, with limited parking areas and no shoulder to speak of. After driving past the falls a while, we were able to turn around only to find out that the parking lot was full. There was a large parking lot off the interstate but we had to backtrack quite a ways to get onto the interstate, only to find out that we could only get on going west (wrong way). After turning around at the next exit, we easily parked in the big lot with 5 minutes to spare. We rushed to the entrance to find that no one was scanning/asking for our tickets and we had no need to rush (stress) about our time slot.
Chris and I had visited Multnomah Falls in November 2002 when we were traveling to Portland to do some work with Habitat for Humanity. We practically had the place to ourselves then, being in the off season. We were definitely not alone this time ;) This is us on the bridge:
I ended up walking back down to get a picture of the kids. The
little dots on the bridge are the kids! Chris is standing behind the tree to the right.
Can you see them?
We would have to essentially backtrack and drive multiple miles west to hop back on the scenic highway east, to then drive past miles of waterfalls we'd seen in order to get to the last few waterfalls we hadn't seen yet, soooooo we opted for ice cream instead ;)
We learned about the PCT from a waitress at breakfast (the equivalent of the AT in the east) who told us that it crosses the bridge over the river, right next to the hotel we were staying at. Since it's part of the PCT, pedestrians are allowed to walk across the bridge! We had to do it!
It was pretty crazy to be walking on a bridge with no sidewalks but I imagine the cars that use it frequently are used to seeing people. We had to stop halfway on each side to get a picture with the state signs:
I've decided that I want my second career to be a train driver on a route along the Columbia River!
We only stayed in Washington for 2 minutes before heading back to Oregon. Our hotel is the building on the left.
The kids enjoyed a little pool time each night. They'd been dying to get in water since they weren't able to swim in the ocean.
The sunset from our hotel room (bridge to Washington on the left)
The next day we set out to experience Mount Hood!
We did a 4-mile hike to Mirror Lake. We could feel the altitude but the kids did great!
We headed over to Trillium Lake for a picnic lunch. When one of the few parking spots left is a bit "off road," you remember that you're in a Jeep and you take it! (It was more up-hill than it appears in the picture)
Trillium Lake
Our last stop was Frog Pond.
After hanging out in the water for a bit, we started noticing little tadpoles swimming in the water. Where there are tadpoles, there must be frogs!! After looking closer on the shore, we found a ton of these little frogs!! We lifted up a rock to find lots of hideaways! No wonder they call it Frog Pond!
Trying to get a selfie with Mount Hood:
We headed to Washington for some ice cream that afternoon, then enjoyed a bit of swimming in the pool. We had 11:00 flights the next day out of Portland so we were able to get a full night's rest before eating and heading to the airport. We could see Mount St. Helens and Mount Rainier as we got in the sky!
We had a great trip! We enjoyed spending time with the Shannons, celebrating with the Shannon-Thorns, and staying a few extra days to experience more of Oregon. It truly captivated us with its beauty and we hope to get back some day! I told the kids to breathe in that fresh COOL mountain air before we returned to our fresh HUMID mountain air at home :)
It was exciting to receive our blown glass votive in the mail a week later (it seemed safer to mail it than to jam it in our suitcase). The colors really brighten as it cools and hardens.
We took home a small container of sand from the site of the wedding, then added in a flower from the bouquets from the wedding. It'll be a great reminder of the trip!
