Portland, Oregon

Day 36, the drive to Portland was very pretty. If you look close on the left, you will see a tractor trailer. I took this picture to put the size of the hills into perspective.

The last 100 miles of our trip, we stayed on interstate, as opposed to the scenic route the rest of the group followed, in order to get to the camping world to pick up our fridge. Well, they didn’t have it… Now we are being promised it will be there on Monday, so another weekend without a refrigerator.

Enroute, we stopped at what is known as a replica of Stonehenge. Stonehenge is a world famous prehistoric monument in the English county of Wiltshire.

It is believed that Stonehenge served as a burial ground from its earliest beginnings, dating as early as 3000 BC, when the first ditches were being constructed around the monument. Burials continued at Stonehenge for at least another 500 years.

Day 37, we visited the Japanese Garden for a guided tour. The goal of a Japanese garden is that upon entering you should realize peace, harmony, and tranquility. The three primary elements of every Japanese Garden are stone, water and plants.

The Rose Gardens are world famous. They were just beautiful. I was surprised that out of many of the roses I smelled, only a few had a fragrance.

Day 38, we had a beautiful drive through the Columbia Gorge with a lead car, because some of the road it was necessary with a huge tour bus. The Crown Point Vista House was our first stop where we had a beautiful view of the Columbia River and Beacon Rock off in a distance.

The Vista House was built in memory of the men who built the road that got us there, through the town of Corbin.

At Multnomah Falls we had a wonderful buffet brunch. We were so stuffed, we didn’t eat the rest of the day. The area has a total of 10 falls. In the 1980s a 400 ton rock fell from the Falls into the area just above the bridge.

Someone got a picture of it; you could barely see the bridge. We understand that 4 people, who were standing on the bridge at the time, were sent to the hospital. I looked closely at the Falls before I decided to take a look from the bridge.
Bonneville Lock and Dam, built in 1933, was the first federal locks and dam on the Columbia and Snake Rivers. We did not tour the dam, but we did check out the fish hatchery and fish ladder, shown below.

This fishway allows migratory adult fish to continue their migration from the sea upstream to tributaries of the Columbia and Snake Rivers. At each fishway, a worker counts the various species of adult fish moving up the fish ladder. This information has been recorded at Bonneville since 1938 and helps the biologists track increases and decreases in fish runs. Between 700,000 and 1.5 million upstream migrant adult salmon and steelhead, and an estimated 24 to 43 million downstream migrant salmon and steelhead fingerlings, pass Bonneville Dam in an average year. Shad, sturgeon, lamprey and other species are also seen. In the hatchery they have some huge sturgeons, which they have named “Herb.”

We ended our day at Oregon City’s Oregon Trail Interpretive Center. They had a great movie and a guide who showed us some of the items the wagon trains would have loaded. The wagons would have carried a few thousand pounds, but as they traveled and the horses, oxen, or mules were injured, things had to be tossed out of the wagon. It must have been heartbreaking to discard a family heirloom.


Day 39, we met early to board our luxury motor coach with our wonderful driver, Cindy. She did a fantastic detour the night before to get us home. Seems someone was on the bridge that we needed to cross to get to our campground. He had a knife, gun, and bow and arrow. The bridge was closed for hours, but Cindy found a way to get us to our destination with only 1 hour delay.

We had a beautiful drive to Mt. St. Helen, stopping off at the visitor’s center, where we saw a film about the 1980 eruption. The eruption knocked trees down for 17 miles and the ash actually floated around the world. The force was so great that it forced the waters from Spirit Lake to form 2 other lakes and raised Spirit Lake 200 feet.

Most of the damage from the eruption has been restored somewhat by plantings,

however, at a certain elevation at the tops of the hills, plantings were not allowed so that they could see what happens naturally. It’s been 28 years and no much as grown…..

It’s an amazing site.

The lightening from the Mt. St. Helen eruption was shooting across at the other mountains. The eruption caused a hill slide on the north side. The hill slide down into the lake and Snake River. I was like an avalanche of huge trees and mud. People on the other side of the mountain never heard a thing. The sound seem to only travel to the north side. As the rushing water, mud and threes rushed down Snake River, people who were fishing were caught by surprise. One person interviewed said he climbed onto a huge tree & road downstream for miles. He was fishing with his girlfriend. Sitting on the log, he searched for her, thought he lost her. Then all of a sudden he saw her hair. He grabbed it & pulled her onto the log. She fell of 3 times before they found safety downstream. A rescue unit on the river bank yelled at them to hurry & get out because another waive of water was 15 min. behind them. We understand the couple never married, I guess she didn’t like the date.

Harry Truman, 86 years old, was the owner of the lodge on Spirit Lake, at the bottom of the mountain. Authorities warned Harry that the mountain was going to erupt and he needed to evacuate. Harry said in an interview, which we saw on the film, that there was no way the mountain was going to erupt at the magnitude they were predicting, that he was a part of the mountain and he was staying there. Poor Harry’s body was never found. He is somewhere 200 feet beneath …..Below, left, is a picture of where the lake used to be at the foot of the mountain.

It’s hard to imagine how devastating it must have been to be there during the eruption.

Pendleton, Oregon

Day 35, We drove to Pendelton, Oregon for a one nighter. When we came up over a hill and saw the beautiful fields of yellow (canola), I quickly grabbed my camera. I had never seen such color.

Also while driving we saw a Budweiser Semi Truck driving through a beautiful neighborhood just off the highway. We didn’t know if he was lost or delivering. If he was delivering, what a party that would have been!

We would like to redesign the trip to add a day in Pendelton, Oregon. What a cute little town, with a lot of cowboy history. We started at “Hamley’s,” located right on Main Street.

I didn’t have a clue as to what it was. Boy did I get a cowboy lesson! We went in the store to find that they hand make saddles and that anybody who is anybody orders their saddle from Hamley’s. They sell cowboy hats, belts, clothing, leather items, robes.

They had a handmade rawhide “lasso” robe that is selling for $1,800!!!!!! I thought my son, Robby, had an expensive saddle, but these saddles start at $5,000 and go up to $50,000. Needless to say, we just looked.

Out from nowhere came a salesman, Parley Pierce, who asked if he could help us. We started talking to him and he told us the story of the building. The building was the original building from when the company started 107 years ago as a family business. All the famous cowboys you’ve read and heard about have been patrons of this store, Wild Bill, John Wayne, all the professional rodeo cowboys, even Paul McCartney is one of their present patrons. As we walked around the store, Parley stayed with us and we kept wondering why he was following us. Certainly he knew we weren’t going to buy anything, then we thought maybe he was making sure we didn’t steal anything…… But we concluded he enjoyed pointing out all the unique items in the store and telling us the history behind them. THEN WE FOUND OUT, he was not a sales clerk, he was one of the OWNERS!!!! How lucky we were to have run into him. We took a gazillion pictures and after spending too much time in the store, told him we had to leave because we wanted to check out the Hamley’s Steakhouse. He told us he would take be happy to give us a tour of the back way over to the steakhouse. It was unbelievable!

He took us to a huge room upstairs decorated like an old time saloon, which they use for parties and what a beautiful HUGE bar!

The bar was purchased from a saloon in Montana where they had a sign, DO NOT CARVE IN THE BAR. Well, a cowboy walked in and stuck his knife right into the top of the bar. The bartender shot and killed him. The bar has been refinished but you can still see the blood spot. The chairs and tables in this room are all from different saloons in the West..

They also acquired the backdrop from the movie Far And Away starring Tom Cruise
In the cattlemen’s club room, they have an apothecary that was made in the late 1800s in Montana, which they found in Belgium! They bought it and had it shipped back to Pendleton.
It is huge. It was the whole length of the wall and then some.
These rooms were upstairs in the building so we worked our way over to the Steakhouse.

Downstairs in the restaurant was a saddle handmade by Hanley’s and handpainted by a 90 year old nun in 1959.

The bank front was the actual bank front which was robbed by Butch Cassidy.

The liquor cabinet is located in the restaurant area. It came with the upstairs famous bar, but was too big to put upstairs.
The ceiling of the restaurant actually won in a ceiling contest! We had never heard of such a thing, and neither had the owners. One of their customers came in, took a picture of the ceiling and entered it into the contest. It’s all stamped tin. The lights hanging from the ceiling were bought from the Stardust hotel in Las Vegas. We were amazed at all the items that the owners have found to add to their collection in their building which makes it so unique.

Again, I have to say, we were so lucky to meet Parley and receive a personal tour. He is a wealth of information about the entire area.

We also found that there are underground tunnels which housed businesses back in the day. We were told that they are better than the tunnels in Seattle. The woman who bought the candy store said she owned the store for 1 year before she found there was a secret door in the basement which led to a tunnel that goes all the way to the state prison! Supposedly the tunnels were built so that famous and political figures could use the tunnels to secretly visit the brothels.

After our trip meeting with our guests, we hopped back into the car to have dinner at Hamley’s Steakhouse. Their food was delicious!

Clarkston, Washington

Day 34, WAS A FREE DAY! We found the most scenic and curvy road (Rt. 129) just outside of town.

The ride was fabulous!

This little town we went through was cute.
In the evening we had a pot luck, one of the best meals we’ve had. Everyone is such a good cook. AND a crazy hat contest. Our guests needed to make their own hat, could not be bought. I’m so glad I didn’t have to vote on the best because there were so many.