Oregon Trip: Day 2
June 12, 2007:
Yesterday was the road trip/county pickup day. But before that happened, I went to the Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge to do a little birding. For the most part, it was just repeats of Texas winter birds. I did see one Texas winter bird that was still a lifer for me, a Swainson's Thrush. But this was definiately not as productive as birding my uncle's Backyard the day before! I still got to see a Bald Eagle, which is always cool.
So I went back and started plotting my day with Pam. I really wanted to do a central Oregon-Washington county grab, so I was looking for things to do that would be interesting enough for Pam to buy into. I came across a replica of Stonehenge built in 1918 for the fallen heroes of the area during WWI. Along the way were a bunch of waterfalls as well, so those combined had Pam sold. I called up my grandparents and they were in too. So we got ready for the day, picked up my grandparents in Beaverton and set out on our way.
Once we got to Troutdale, we got off the main freeway onto the old Historic Columbia River Highway. Our first stop along the way was the Crown Point Observation House. The view was just spectacular! Once the vacation is over I'll throw all my photos up online. The house was also a museum to the old highway (which used to by the only way to travel east through Oregon). They even had old photographs of model-T cars driving through hairpin turns and through the tunnels of the cliffs along the river.
Next on our stop list was Multnomah Falls. My aunt and uncle had taken me there when I visited last in 2001, but Pam had never seen it. The falls are over 600 feet tall and the second largest in the county. It's one of Oregon's biggest tourist attractions and we could tell that was true by the amount of tourists that were there, even on a Monday! We didn't stay very long; we just took a moment to enjoy it, take some pictures, and keep moving on. I think if we had not been going all the way to the Maryhill Museum (where stonehenge is), we would of spent more time looking at waterfalls.
After Multnomah was lunchtime (and a new county, Hood River), so we stopped at a restraunt-looking bar for some lunch. I had a quesadilla with garlic and peppers (much to the dismay of everyone around me) and split a bowl of clam chowder with Pam. Pam had a thanksgiving sandwich for the second time already this week. She thinks it's so interesting that there are so many places here that serve sandwiches like that, since we all had one yesterday as well.
After lunch in Hood River, we crossed the Hood River toll bridge (a whopping $.75) over to Washington for my second new county, Klickitak. Since Skamania county was just one mile to the west, my family indulged me at let me drive down there for a quick u-turn grab. After we u-turned, Pam said she wanted a photograph of the para-sailers with Mount Hood in the background. I couldn't get a good shot from where we were. She said it was a great shot from back in Skamania county! So back we went and got the great shot in Skamania county. Now I've been to Skamania county twice :)
I decided to stay on the Washington side all the way to Maryhill Museum. As we drove on, we got to see the transition from western to central Oregon. All the trees disappeared and everything got really brown. Even all the clouds went away. In the matter of 30 minutes, we went from pine forest to mountain desert. I just thought that was really interesting.
The museum was kind of odd. It belonged to an Oregon Millionaire, Samuel Hill (my grandmother says of "What in the Sam Hill" fame), who was good friends with the Queen Marie of Romania during the time leading up to World War I. Hence the name, Maryhill. So there were a lot of artifacts from not only his travels, but also her tenure as queen. The mansion itself was gorgeous, on a cliff overlooking the Columbia River and Mount Hood. Stonehenge was 3 miles down the road and had just as spectacular a view. It was also very very windy :)
We crossed back over into Oregon and I picked up Sherman County and then immediately crossed into Wasco County. My original plan (before the Maryhill Museum) was to go as far as The Dalles (Wasco County), then head down to White Rock Falls State Park and peek into Sherman there, but now I didn't have to. There was no alternate way back to pick up more counties unless I went a whole hour out of my way. Since I had my family with me, we just took the freeway back. On the way, we stopped at TA Travel Center that we had noticed had $2.99 gas. It turns out Oregon is one of two states in the nation where they don't trust their citizens to pump their own gas.
We stopped at a restaurant near Beaverton for dinner which was like a nicer Denny's (I can't remember the name) then dropped my grandparents back off at their apartment. It was quite a busy day. I think today we're going to take it easy during the day and go see Portland at night.
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