From Oregon To Washington And Back…

Today everyone had a different plan.  Rod and Deb were having lunch with an old friend who lives in Portland and Jim and Ellie had several things they needed to get accomplished.  So, around mid-morning, Mark and I made a plan and hit the road.

First stop was at the local Walgreens Drug Store where we got our flu shots.  With that accomplished, we decided to see just what the area might have to offer.  We saw a sign for

  this park and decided to stop.  It was just a small

day use only park, but we couldn’t resist stopping.  It seems that we have been following these two guys all over the country so we wanted to see what they were doing here.  It seems like

they got confused and paddled down the Sandy River instead of the Columbia.  It is thought that they probably encountered the Sandy River just after an eruption of Mount Hood which caused immense mudflows and floodwater from melted snow and ice that surged down the river which caused the confusion.

After concluding our visit with Mr. Lewis and Mr. Clark, we journeyed on around

the parkway to

this observation area.  Wow,  what a view

of the Columbia River and Crown Point.  We drove on around to Crown Point where

Vista House sits out on the ledge overlooking

the river and Portland.

We wanted to wait to go to the falls with everyone else, so we turned around at this point and headed back for Portland.  Mark decided he needed junk food for lunch.  This is

as close to junk food as I would let him get. LOL…

After lunch, we decided to cross the river and head  to Vancouver, Washington to

Fort Vancouver.  At the

Visitor Center we watched a movie about the Fort and did a little shopping in the bookstore.  I found the loose leaf version of the National Parks Passport Book I had been looking for.  So, I got that, some new park stamps, and my cancellation stamp for Fort Vancouver.

It was then time for us to head out on our self guided tour of the area.  We walked just across the street to

Officer’s Row.  Here are a few of the houses we saw…

Today, some of them are businesses, others are private residences, and this one is a restaurant.

From Officer’s Row, we walked back across the street and saw the

barracks for the enlisted men and the

bandstand and review area.

We then drove over to the old

Fort Vancouver.  This site was actually never a military fort, but a place built by the Hudson Bay Trading Company.  The Indians came here to

trade furs.

This was the

home of the commander that ran the Hudson Trading Company.  It was also where all the officers of the company ate their meals.

We walked through the gardens…there were

flowers,

some really tall corn,

pumpkins, and

some really large squash.

There were also

lemon trees and

grapevines.

Well, the day was getting away from us and Mark still wanted to visit

the air field which is still operational today.

We had great day, but it was time to head back to Oregon.  On the way, we had a beautiful view of

Mount Hood and the Columbia River.

I am going to leave you at the end of this adventure with a thought I saw today on the back of a T shirt…

Have a great day!