Oregon's Bonneville Fish Hatchery and Dam

We took a side trip to the Bonneville Fish Hatchery and Dam on the fourth of July. We had packed up camp and were in fine explorer mode that morning. The chinook and coho salmon fish hatchery is just downstream from the dam and has beautiful buildings and landscaping. This is a huge operation.  

You can feed the rainbow trout. They are pretty. Dad will be real happy that my polarizer filter did such a good job on this picture!

Herman the Sturgeon, an 11-foot creature, lives at the hatchery along with some huge sturgeon friends of his. One of his friends is passing in front of Holls in this picture. And here comes Herman...

I think he's pretty cute with those hanging whiskers!

Wowzer! Aren't they huge beasties?!

Wow for the beautiful flowers and landscaping, too!

So this is the Bonneville Lock and Dam. It's sooooo powerful!

Water running through the dam powers generators, which power these turbines (above), which are basically huge propellers, to produce electricity. Pretty amazing.

Behind Rob are the fish ladders - they look like water steps. They let the fish get past the dam so they can get back to their spawning grounds.

And the fish continue swimming up these mazes. It was really fun to see. There's an underwater view room down below this and every now and then, you can see fish through a window underwater swimming upstream through the ladders. They have to work hard!

This is above the fish ladders, and is where the fish come out after they've made it through the ladders. It's really quiet and peaceful at this point! We had a great time and learned a lot at the dam and fish hatchery.

 

 

No flower picture, you say? Well, if you insist! I'll end with these pretty day lilies. The grounds around the dam were beautiful, too, and there were many kinds of flowers, to my delight. :)

Tenting It In Oregon

Since I've been back from Oregon, I've had camping fever. It was so fun! It's hard to believe that we fit three tents, four sleeping bags and mats, all of our food and cooking gear, and our clothes and pillows into my car. Rob was the master organizer and made it all happen. Here we are packing up to leave our campsite.

Burd was the master chef and kept us all well fed with his delicious homemade stew for dinner and pancakes and eggs for breakfast. That man can cook!

Our camp host came by with his puppies and we got acquainted. Aren't they soooo cute? You'll never believe how he got the white one. Just the day before he found out that it had been abandoned by the side of the road and he rescued it. Who would abandon such an adorable little pup?! His other little pup LOVES his new sibling!  

So here are Burd and Holls in their 2-person backpacking tent. They said they were very comfy it it. That's newlyweds for you. Wait a minute...in just a couple of weeks they will have their one year anniversary! It's cute that they still act like newlyweds.

Another pup! This little guy was in the camp next to us and came over to visit. He was so pretty, I couldn't help taking a snap!

Did I mention that Holls likes to snap away, too? Yes? You've heard that before? She is a photog, if I ever saw one! The guys were so patient with us cuz there were so many things that caught our eyes for photos everywhere we turned!

Oh yum! Cookin' up the pancakes!

You can just wonder about this until another post. :)

And here is our camp spot in the morning. Yeah, there are only two tents, cuz I didn't get the snap before Robster had packed his up.

Oh yum again! Thanks for the delish dinner and breakfast, Burd! You are the BEST! Camping was the best! Oregon was the best! Stay tuned for more.

Oregon Highlights

Here are some highlights as we started out on our camping trip in the Columbia River Gorge area.

These babies were everywhere on the trip...in Idaho...and along the Columbia River (which happens to be very windy!). On the drive home we saw ONE blade being transported on a huge trailer and it was ginormous.

That's no Angel Moroni on top. It's a rooster. Cool church in The Dalles.

We took a scenic byway detour (by choice) up in the mountains on our way to camping and hiking. If you don't know by now, that's the mighty Columbia River! This is looking east (where we came from) and before the trees completely took over the mountains up ahead.

Same lookout as above, just looking west now. That's where we're headed.

Hey! We got lucky and found a campsite! I think it was called Wyeth. The highway was not too far below us and there was hiking above us. Once we set up camp, we set off to explore the trail.

I love coming onto bridges!

The trail was mostly shaded in the trees, but there were a few sunny spots.

These little daisies were everywhere. My fav!

Yep, I take a lot of pictures of flowers and trees.

More to come!

Multnomah Falls, Oregon

This is Multnomah Falls...again, in the Columbia River Gorge area. It's 620 feet from top to bottom, and quite the tourist attraction. You can hike up to the bridge from the base, and then keep going to the top. We did. All the way. About one and a quarter mile. I could not believe the people on the trail. It was pretty steep and there was a man pushing a double stroller with kids in it. I don't know how he did it!

 

This view below is from the bridge at the midpoint.

And here is a view of the Columbia River from the trail on the way up.

Once we got to the top, we stood on a deck above the highest waterfall and looked down.

And not surprising, there were other waterfalls that fed into the high waterfall.

 

Let's just say we were in waterfall heaven. K?!

Wachella Falls, Oregon

Yep, that's Rob in front of a GIGANTIC waterfall!

It's hard to know where to start, I have so many pictures. We were in Oregon for just four full days and it felt like a week, cuz we were going, going, going the entire time. One of the highlights of our trip was hiking to this waterfall in the Columbia River Gorge area. It's called Wachella Falls. If you look closely, you can see Rob at the bottom, and at the top, another smaller waterfall that feeds into the large fall.

This waterfall is so powerful, we could feel the cold spray from across the stream.

The hike up was really incredible. Everything was so lush and green. It's so moist there, that all the trees and rocks have moss growing on them, which gives such a ethereal effect...like we were in another world.

So this is a start and there's lots more to come!