Fall Foliage

 Happy Monday! We hope everyone is having a good week so far. We actually don't have a project for today. We have some pictures of our trip yesterday. We drove down to Portland yesterday, to see some fall foliage. We had decided earlier that we were going to go to Multnomah Falls and see it in the fall. We went last summer and it was amazing. It is the second-highest year-round waterfall in the country. Anyway, if you go on Pinterest and look it up, there is a gorgeous picture of it during Autumn, so we wanted to see it for ourselves.

 We checked and re-checked the fall foliage outlook from the Weather Channel and it said the area was at peak. All I can say is "Lies!" Granted, there are a lot more evergreen trees out here than in the Northeast, and there were some trees that had changed color. It was also chilly, and raining on and off all day (y. Which meant that part of the trail was pretty muddy. The only nice thing was that it wasn't too crowded, so we were able to get some nice pictures without having to fight too many people!

 This picture was taken on a side trail. The water was flowing pretty quickly, with all of the rain we've been having. I love the little bit of orange and yellow in the foreground!

This one is from the top of the falls. Once we trekked through the mud and got to the overlook, we were alone, which was great. This is actually Washington, on the other side of the Columbia River (and I-84 below)
It is really a gorgeous place to visit! We wanted our parents to go there when they came out, but they passed on it. Which is unfortunate, because at least they would have had nicer weather. There were a few other spots we wanted to stop at, but the road was closed for improvements.

 Anyway, thanks for stopping by! Come back tomorrow for another Halloween project!

Day Thirty-Six: Bridge Over Untroubled Water

Last night, we got a recommendation for breakfast at a place in Damascus called the Carver Cafe, so we headed out that way, after a night where the train didn't wake us up! Well, you can figure out why they recommend it, just by looking at all of the cars in the parking lot. And I guess since it was Saturday morning, it was probably even busier than usual. Well, we were hungry and didn't really feel like waiting for a table, so we ended up at our usual go-to, Starbucks. Not as exciting. Oh well. Maybe another time. On the way back, we passed a sign for a town named 'Boring'. Don't think I'd want to grow up living there...
After that, it was to Route 30 and the Oregon Historic Scenic Byway which is the Lewis and Clark Trail. A lot of people had the same idea as us. Again, probably because it's Saturday and the weather is gorgeous today. We stopped at Vista House. This was a building up on the cliffs, overlooking the Columbia River. There were a lot of people, there, too. (Mom, we did see a truck that said 'Roloff Construction'.) It was a look-out point. Along Highway 30, there are a bunch (5 or 6) different waterfalls along the way. The biggest one is Multnomah. (They actually filmed the falls in a few scenes from Twilight...) They are the second tallest all-year falls in the country. They are 620 feet high, which doesn't seem very tall, but they definitely are. There was a trail to the top, so we decided to take it. Man, that was a steep trail. They stretched it out over 1.5 miles, but parts of the trail were wicked steep. It was kind of funny watching the other people going up who decided, "Ehh... that's far enough," half way up. When we got to the end of the trail, there was a fork in the road, but the trail markers don't tell you where the two trails end up. So we decided to take the one that had more people (they couldn't all be wrong, could they?) and it was the right one. It led to a viewing deck, where you could look down onto the falls. You couldn't really see much of the falls, since the trees had grown over the water, but the view looking out and down were awesome. You could see Washington over the river. The way down was a lot easier than the way up. At the bottom, there where all kinds of gift shops and a small cafe. We went to the gift shop to get some postcards (which none of you are getting. :) and then we headed back to the car. There was another trail called the "Return Trail", hoping that it would take us back to the parking lot. Luckily, it did, and it was much better than walking on the road, which is what we did going there. It led us back to Wahkeena Falls, which was a smaller waterfall. There are quite a few in this area.
After we left the area, we decided to head back to camp for the night. We are trying out a few more grilling recipes, so hopefully we'll be successful! We are going to spend the evening updating, etc. We have tons of pictures that we are going to try to put up in the next few days. It might take us a while!