The invisible mountains

The Internet connection tonight is too slow to post pictures so I will have another go at it tomorrow night, or the next, depending on where we stop.  Therefore, here you go with the narritive minus the pics. 

We left Bengin and drove west on the Washington side of the Gorge until we came to the Bridge of the Gods that is just as narrow as the Hood River Bridge but not nearly as long. Driving across the bridge put us on the Historic Columbia River Highway built through the Columbia River Gorge between 1913 and 1922, the first planned scenic roadway in the United States. It has some very scenic stops but is actually too narrow for this RV and we were both glad to abandon it for I-84. But while on it we stopped at the Bonneville Dam where the RV was inspected for weapons and probably explosives since the dam is an Army Corps of Engineers project and probably pretty important to the power grid in the Northwest. We encountered no resistance since we really don’t look much like criminals or madpeople. Backpacks and large purses are not allowed in the visitor center. We complied. Apparently, salmon are not allowed there either since we didn’t see a single one on the salmon bridge where they are allowed to circumvent the dam. 

We stopped at Multnomah Falls which is a waterfall on the Oregon side of the Columbia River Gorge along the Historic Columbia River Highway. The falls drops in two major steps, split into an upper falls of 542 feet and a lower falls of 69 feet, with a gradual 9 foot drop in elevation between the two, so the total height of the waterfall is conventionally given as 620 feet. Multnomah Falls is the tallest waterfall in the State of Oregon. It is credited by a sign at the site of the falls as the second tallest year-round waterfall in the United States. I took some pictures but I’m using one that I found online so the entire falls is shown. The stone work on the bridge and the surrounding areas was done by President Roosevelt’s New Deal which employed millions of unskilled workers (the WPA and CCC) who constructed public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads and many other projects.

After we left the old 30, we headed toward Portland and north on I-5 then hoping to travel east between Mt. St. Helens on the south and Mt. Rainier on the north. Our plan worked and we got lucky when we took a road to the north that turned out to lead us to the entrance to Mt. Rainer National Park and was not one of those closed because of snow. The nasty weather however, proved to be our undoing and we ended up not seeing either of the summits. Oh, well. Stuff happens. 

The funniest thing that has happened to us on this trip was today as we were back-tracking from Mt. Rainier Park. We came up behind a pickup going very slowly down the curving road. I started laughing when I realized that the truck had a Florida license plate on it. Just like in the NC mountains. Get behind a “flat-lander” and you can bet it will try your patience. Look at the speed in the picture of the GPS. He got ever slower and at one point was going 13 miles an hour.

When we entered the Mt. Rainer park, we were amazed at the size of the trees that we saw. The large ones in the picture are Ponderosa pines. They are HUGH! The area must be a haven for woodpeckers since there were so many dead trees available for habitat.

Tomorrow we will enter Canada and be in Alaska by Saturday or Sunday and will turn in the unit on May 31.