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Adventures in the Villa

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Columbia River

2021-09-06 – 2021-09-11 – Traveling from Puyallup, WA to Redlands, CA

We are heading home…

September 6; Labor Day…

Last day of summer! (Even though school started three weeks ago – it’s still summer!)

Our grandchildren enjoyed a day at the beach!

We left Puyallop and headed south…

The Columbia River never ceases to please…

Remember when I said one barge on the Columbia River holds enough grain to fill 160 railroad cars? Here is where the barges offload the grain, where it is loaded into the railroad cars…

Portland has some great bridges…

And we are set up at a very nice RV Park in Salem, OR.

With a beautiful sky…

Tuesday, September 7:

We left early – we have a long day… The fog was a nice relief from the heat…

Wait! That’s not fog – it’s smoke!

There are four wildfires to the east of us, just over the hills… The whole length of the state…

At a rest stop we couldn’t see the mountains…

We passed through the delightful little town of Jacksonville, OR, located about 20 miles off the 5, west of Medford… We found out camping spot for the night – Valley View Winery, part of the Harvest Host program…

Still a little smoky…

We were the gusts for dinner at old Airstream friends who live a few miles from the winery… They lave 7 acres and a lovely house overlooking the Applegate River…

Fiery sunset over the river…

After a lovely dinner we returned to the Villa…

Wednesday, September 8:

As we left the winey in the morning we found a few wild turkeys…

We soon returned to California! Yay!

We saw lots of evidence of last year’s fires…

And we had some more smoke as well…

But soon the skies cleared as we approached Clear Lake…

After a tortuous drive over Hwy 175 we arrived in Cloverdale in time for a lovely sunset sky…

Thursday, September 9:

We awoke to clear skies and headed down the road…

We crossed over the Richmond bridge and the San Francisco Bay…

Still a little smoggy, but we could see the Golden Gate Bridge…

Still a little smoggy, but we could make out the city skyline…

Oakland is noted for its giant cargo container cranes…

And downtown Oakland is looking good…

BART running past us… We love cities!

We arrived at our RV park in Marina, just outside Monterey…

We drove into Carmel to stroll the town before dinner…

The beach is lovely, but cold!

We had a delightful dinner at a “Contemporary Mexican Restaurant”. First Mexican food since we left California on July 23… (We don’t eat Mexican food outside California – way too many disappointing meals over the past years…)

Friday, September 10

As we headed out of Marina across the Salinas Valley we saw fields and fields of lettuce…

Soon we saw vineyards…

We arrive in Paso Robles and parked just outside downtown. And a lovely town it is…

We stopped in for a wine tasting, hosted by this charming fellow…

But we are on a tight schedule, so we head south again, arriving at Los Olivos at about 4:00 pm…

We enjoyed a little wine tasting on the front patio…

Plenty of parking in Los Olivos, even on a Friday afternoon…

We parked in the Saarloos vineyard for the night, and shared dinner with Airstream friends at Bell’s in Los Alamos…

Saturday, September 11:

We arrived home in Redlands, California…

We shared happy hours drinking beer on the front porch with our son…

And an enjoyable time was had by all…

Seven weeks and one day… twelve states… 7,000 miles.

The End

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2021-09-01 to 2021-09-03 – Bellingham, WA

Wednesday, September 1:

We left Riverside State Park in Spokane at 6:45 am. We have a long drive today to reach Bellingham this afternoon. Most of today we will be westbound on the 90, then north on the 5…

We passed a few lovely farms…

And we stopped where there was nothing green as far as the eye could see…

This area was designated as a solar and wind energy conservation area, but we didn’t see any solar installations…

We did see the Columbia River cutting through a deep gorge…

At the bottom of the gorge we crossed over a marvelous bridge…

We were shortly back into the green forests…

We arrived in Bellingham at the home of my brother…

My brother and his wife are big fans of our cocktail book. In fact, they presented us with the gift of two commemorative copies of the book…

They demonstrated that they have all the proper equipment to use the book…

We enjoyed happy hours and dinner on the view deck…

And we watched the sunset over the Bellingham Bay and Lummi Island…

Thursday, September 2:

We took a drive today to enjoy a short walk in the woods…

We soon found ourselves on a rocky beach at Point Whitehorn Park…

The walk back up the bluff looked just like the walk down…

We drove into Birch Bay and stopped for a lunch of grilled oysters. (Lynda had fish tacos…)

After lunch we returned home and again enjoyed happy hours and dinner on the deck…

Friday, September 3:

We had time for one quick walk along the boardwalk in Fairhaven…

Then it was time to head south again…

An enjoyable time was had by all…

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2021-08-30 to 2021-09-01 – Leaving The Oregon Trail caravan … Traveling to Riverside State Park, Spokane, WA

Monday, 8/30:

We left Wilsonville, OR at 5:45 am and headed north through Portland and then east…

The Columbia River never disappoints…

Nor does the Columbia River Gorge…

We crossed over “Twin Bridges”… Indeed…

And then we were officially in Eastern Washington… Or, as the locals call it, “The East Side”…

Great suspension bridge…

And vineyards…

And more typical eastern Washington…

We stopped in Ritzville for lunch…

This lunch stop was ill-advised and clearly sub-optimal…

We arrived mid afternoon at Riverside State Park, outside Spokane. THis is the Equestrian campground, where my brother is a camp host… However, the campground was closed two weeks ago due to fire danger, so we were there alone…

John’s wife was off marking trails on her horse, so we three had lovely happy hours sitting around the picnic table, and turned in early…

Tuesday, 8/31:

My brother and his wife took us to breakfast at Wolfy’s…

They showed us around the area, then we returned to the campground for a walk. A long walk. A fast walk…

I think this is the last my brother and I saw of our wives until they stopped mid day…

We walked along the Spokane River…

After our walk we met the horsewomen as they prepared to ride and mark trails for an upcoming trail meet…

After the horse women left we drove toward Spokane…

We soon were downtown, where we found the Leatherbeard Brewery…

Here I am with the co-owner and father of the brewmaster…

We found a table and sampled some beer… these are folks we know from Irvine; they moved here a few years ago to open the brewery… They seem to be doing well…

We returned the State Park, where we had some visitors…

We had another lovely happy hours. It was good to catch up. We don’t see each other very often…

Wednesday, 9/1:

We have a long drive today. We left at 6:45 and heated west towards Seattle and points north…

An enjoyable time was had by all…

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2021-08-25 – The Oregon Trail caravan … Day 28 – Cascade Locks, OR

We escaped the doom and gloom of the RV park and headed to Portland! It will be good to do an urban hike and find a nice hip place for lunch…

We passed by the Bridge of the Gods, a National Historical Monument, crossing the Columbia River.

We enjoyed marvelous views of the Columbia River in the morning; we drove along a scenic parkway as we headed into Portland.

However, when the Oregon Trail emigrants came through here 170 years ago this was not the case. The Columbia has many dams on it and it looks like a placid lake. Railroads and highways have been built on levies and cut into the shear rock walls. When the emigrants were here it was a wild raging river. The wagon trail stopped at The Dalles, and only a single cow path continued on in to the Willamette Valley. More on this saga tomorrow…

Today was urban hiking day. We walked and walked all over the district or neighborhood called the Pearl… We enjoyed lunch at a sidewalk café and pretended that we were hipster urbanites…

Thirty years ago this area consisted of derelict railyards and warehouses. When the rails were removed the warehouses were remodeled into stores, office, and apartments. Then new apartments and condos were built. Today it is all built up into a marvelous mixed use neighborhood…

We headed back towards the Cascade Locks, driving over some great old bridges…

We stopped of briefly to see Multnomah Falls…

And then we stopped at the Bonneville Dam…

One of the first thing we saw was this turbine. It is a giant propeller that is driven by the flow of the water, and the turbine in turn rotates the generator, producing electricity… It is about 15′ tall. Family note here: My father used to build full size “models” of things like this, but out of wood. The wood model is used to make the die, or mold, into which molten metal is poured to produce the turbine…)

A fascinating thing is the fish ladder. The Columbia River is a huge spawning ground for salmon returning from the sea. Dams block their path. When the dam was built in 1936 the fish ladder was very primitive and experimental. However, when the dam was expanded by adding a second power house they installed a state of the art fish ladder. It is directly adjacent to the Visitors Center… The are underwater windows so you can watch the fish swim by…

The even count all the fish…

This is what the fish ladder looks like from the top…

On our way out we stopped in to see the navigation locks. These locks allow giant barges to pass through the dam…

Our final adventure of the day is a dinner cruise on this historic sternwheeler river boat. Except, it was broken…

But we met up at the cafe and waited for all the Airstreamers to arrive…

And here are the pickup trucks in which the Airstreamers arrived…

No, this is not our substitute boat…

But, hiding behind the broken sternwheeler is our substitute boat…

Inside was quite comfortable and we all gathered for dinner…

We enjoyed the sunset, as well as views of the surrounding shore, both on the Oregon side and on the Washington side…

We were able to go under the Bridge of the Gods…

And we enjoyed a nice dinner…

We returned to the Villa…

An enjoyable time was had by all…

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2021-08-24 – The Oregon Trail caravan … Day 27 – Traveling from Pendleton, OR to Cascade Locks, OR

We enjoyed Pendleton and Walla Walla, but it was once again time to move on. We drove today for over 100 miles along the mighty Columbia River…

The river area starts out being developed for industry, taking advantage of the hydro power…

We stopped at a rest area, and we couldn’t even see the river…

And that is the long and short of it…

When we could see the river we saw these barges… One combination of four barges like this, pushed by a 3,000 HP tugboat, carries enough grain to fill 160 railway cars…

The Columbia is wide! mighty wide!

The Columbia is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada. It flows northwest and then south into the US state of Washington, then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state of Oregon before emptying into the Pacific Ocean. The river is 1,243 miles long, and its largest tributary is the Snake River.  Its drainage basin is roughly the size of France and extends into seven US states and British Columbia. The fourth-largest river in the United States by volume, the Columbia has the greatest flow of any North American river entering the Pacific. The Columbia has the 37th greatest discharge of any river in the world.

Of course, the banks on the opposite side of the river is the state of Washington…

As we entered the Columbia River Gorge Scenic Area there was very little industry along the river, aside from the dams…

There are several dams on the Columbia. The first dam we passed was the John Day Dam… The next, shown here, is The Dalles Dam…

We stopped in the town of The Dalles to stretch our legs and to see the town…

There is not a lot going on. Clearly The Dalles has seen better times. However, we found the National Neon Sign Museum, in this fine old building that been an Elks lodge in an earlier life…

These rooms contain about 10% of this man’s collection of neon signs… Ironically, this first room displays only light bulb signs… We learned a little of the history of light bulbs and neon light tubes. We also watched a video showing how neon lights are constructed…

We moved on. We learned that there are two different types of gas in these signs – neon and argon. The colors are made by various colors of the glass and whether argon is used or neon…

This guy was clearly passionate about neon signs and historic logos…

We moved upstairs to what used to be the lodge hall or ballroom… It is now used as an event venue…

Lynda made a new friend…

After our tour we walked the town and saw more evidence of neon in the town…

As I have said, the town looks a little sad…

More neon here at the defunct theater…

There is evidence that the town is starting to be reborn. These storefronts have had their 1950s era “modern” facades removed, revealing the original early 20th century designs…

We traveled on. Great views all along the way…

We arrived at the RV park. This type of park is a favorite amongst many caravaners, but it is not mine. I find dense forests depressing and a little sinister. It is rare to see the sun anywhere in the park; not to mention that I cannot connect to satellite TV. (The park does have relatively good cable TV hook-ups…)

And an enjoyable time was had by all…

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