A day trip up the Columbia Gorge

       We had a most interesting day today, and experienced some of the craziest weather we have seen on this trip.  We decided to take a day trip in the RV out through the Columbia Gorge, something that Becky had done once before on a previous visit.  We drove to old Historic US 30 east of Portland, and climbed up the mountainous road overlooking the Columbia River.  From the top, it was like you could see forever--that is, if it weren't raining!  As we were driving up there, it started sprinkling.  Driving backdown to river level again, it would rain sporadically and switch back and forth to sleet.  

     Driving along the road, it was one beautiful waterfall after another, often in conjunction with beautiful old bridges built in the early 20th century.  One in particular was the Latourell Falls bridge.
     The road goes for perhaps twenty miles, and the BNSF railway parallels the road.  For the most part, it's some 30-50 feet above water level.
     It was interesting how the whole Columbia Gorge was created, and predominantly carved out 15,000 years ago when an ice sheet fell onto the Clark Fork of the Columbia river near Missoula, creating a 3000 square mile lake up to 2000' in depth.  The ice dam gave way one day, sending 9 1/2 cubic MILES of water per hour down the gorge, for 40 hours(that's more than 10 times the normal flow of all the rivers of the world combined!).  In the Gorge, it stripped away soil and rock up to 1000' above the current river level.  Amazing!

     We arrived at our primary destination, Multnomah Falls around 10:30am, and went into the lounge/restaurant for coffee as we were somewhat chilled.  They serve a great breakfast there, so we had brunch and did some shopping in the gift store.  Then out to the Falls themselves, at 620' the second highest year-round falls in the United States.  The two photos of Becky and Jim were taken before we ascended up to the bridge over the lower falls, as the weather was merely damp at that point.  Note the bridge in the background.

      No sooner had we arrived there when hailstones started falling!!  We beat a hasty retreat back down from the bridge and into the information center, and then retired back to the RV and the dogs.  It's a great place to stop and spend some time, particularly if the weather is nice and you're into hiking the trail up to the top!
      We decided to continue to the east, and drove on I84 out past the Bonneville Dam, through the Dalles, and on to a crossing point bridge at a place named Biggs.  We filled up on diesel before crossing--$3.19 per gallon, and it's full service (you can't pump your own in Oregon, just like NJ).  When we crossed into Washington state, where we could have pumped our own, we would have paid $3.45!
      Just before getting to the bridge, we observed a massive wind farm on the Washington side shown here.  When we got over there and climbed to the top of the hills, we were close to the level of these huge modern day wonders.  The drive back was on WA Highway 14, and is quite a beautiful drive.
       We would have enjoyed seeing some of the Oregon mountains on the trip, but clouds prevented that the whole day.  And so did the precipitation!  As we drove along the road, we went from sunshine to rain to sleet to hail, again!  The next two photos show Columbia River views in the sunshine, and again after we came out of the hail storm shown here.

     All in all, it was a great day trip, and we're glad we did it!  Weather notwithstanding!!