Visitng Portland

Pictures 1-2: Portland is doing a lot to encourage alternative forms of transportation. In addition to supporting electric cars, there are lots of designated bike lanes with many bikers using them, and an extensive light rail and trolley system.


Picture 3: At the Chinese Garden.


Picture 4: At the Japanese Garden.


Picture 5: Madeleine joins the body art generation. View it here. It will be worn off by the time we return home.

Water flowing downhill in all its glory

Picture 1: Upper Horseshoe Falls (Pony Falls), Columbia River Gorge.

Picture 2: Multnomah Falls, Columbia River Gorge.

Picture 3: Wahkeena Falls, Columbia River Gorge.

Picture 4: Weisendanger Falls, Columbia River Gorge.

Picture 5: Wahkeena Falls, Columbia River Gorge.

Water still flowing downhill

Picture 1: Sunbeam Creek in Mt. Ranier NP.

Picture 2: Ohanapecosh River Falls at Mt. Ranier NP.

Picture 3: Narada Falls at Mt. Ranier NP.

Picture 4: One of the many lovely streams along Skyline Trail in Mt. Ranier NP.

Picture 5: Sol Duc Falls in Olympic NP.

The locks at the Bonneville Dam

We stopped to see the Bonneville Dam along the Columbia River. We happened to time it just before a tugboat arrived pushing three huge barges strapped together.

Picture 1: The lower locks open so that the barges can continue their route down the Columbia toward the coast.

Picture 2: The barges and tug are designed so that the combination of tug and barges just fits within the lock, with literally inches to spare!

Picture 3: Old cars on their final trip.

Mt. Ranier National Park

Picture 1: The majestic Mt. Ranier.


Picture 2: What can happen along the road. This is normally a narrow 2-lane road.


Pictures 3-4: In contrast to the amazing blue color of Crater Lake that we sent last time, the emerald green of the Ohanapecosh River is due to a combination of its pure water sources – winter snow melt – and the vegetation and organisms in the river. The Nisqually River, which is fed by the Nisqually Glacier, is milky white in color, as are all the active-glacier-fed rivers.

Climbing the Skyline Trail at Paradise in Mt. Ranier NP

Picture 1: A marmot among the wildflowers.

Picture 2: A group of would-be climbers, training on the snow before beginning their ascent of Mt. Ranier.

Picture 3: We made it! This is the well-named Panorama Point at 6800' where you can see Mt. Adams, Mt. Hood in Oregon and Mt. St. Helens.

The Hoh Rain Forest, Olympic National Park

Pictures 1-2: Moss completely covers certain trees in this incredibly lush temperate rain forest, one of only a few in the world. Unlike our familiar vines back home that often destroy or stunt the trees they grow on, an undergraduate student who loved climbing trees researched the symbiotic relationship between the moss and the tree.

Picture 3: A crytal-clear stream with plants shimmering thru the water and moss hanging down from overhead trees.