Columbia River Gorge

We flew into Portland, Oregon via Alaska Airlines on a Saturday evening. After grabbing a rental at Avis (be aware that Avis is not in the airport terminal. You have to take a shuttle.) we headed for Cascade Locks about 45 minutes east. We arrived at the Best Western Plus in Cascade Locks, Oregon at about 10:00 in the evening. We were looking for a snack and beers. The concierge indicated that there was only one place in town that sold beer at that time of night…. the Cascade Inn down the street. Their kitchen would be closed, but they could do up deli sandwiches if we were so inclined. It took a few minutes to find the place even though it was within walking distance. It looked a little sketchy with an old local out front, obviously well into his night of drinking. From his looks a night of drinking is probably his norm. We walked into an old, run down bar with one pool table and half dozen video slot machines lined up against the wall. Looking for a beer, I asked the woman behind the bar what was on tap. They had three; Budweiser, Coors, and a local brew. Great selection (sarcasm) so we chose the local. In the mean time, a couple next to us was finishing up their order of 5 sides of mashed potatoes and gravy to go. I didn’t want to know what they were going to do with it when they got home. After a couple brews and a little discussion with locals (mostly just having fun listening to them) we headed back to our room for a well deserved rest.

The next morning we awoke to pretty steady drizzle (no, drizzle isn’t some Snoop Dog term). We grabbed breakfast at the Bridgeside restaurant next door (included in the hotel fee), and decided to book a dinner cruise with Portland Spirit on a stern wheeler for dinner that evening. We then headed to a roadside waterfall not too far away on the Washington side of the Columbia River beyond Carson, WA. We found Panther Falls after a couple of turn arounds and when we finally found the short trail to the falls, we noticed in great big, blue letters in the middle of the road “FALLS”. Go figure. The falls were only a couple hundred yards from the road and they were spectacular! Our first outing of the trip and it surely did not disappoint. Tammy said that I was a little too excited, though not in those exact words….. I have a Kata rain cover for my camera to keep it waterproof. It works fairly well, but can be hard to focus if you like to shoot in manual as I do. After a little shuffling around to make it work well, I finally gave up and Tammy held it over the camera to keep water off it, while I continued shooting.

Since the sky was still a little threatening, we decided to spend the rest of the day going to a few of the road side waterfalls along the Columbia Gorge on the Oregon side of the Columbia River. Even on a dreary Sunday in bad weather, some of the locations including Multnomah Falls, were down right packed. Locations we hit:

 

 

 

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Quick Photography Note

Just a quick side note about our adventures and photographing locations. I have noticed that how photos are composed and post processed provides a photographer’s interpretation of the location. I am always amazed at the difference in what I think a location is going to look like based on photographs I have seen and how the locations looks in real life. Above at Multnomah Falls is a good example. The photos I have researched always reminded me of something out of ‘Lord of the Rings’ as I hope is represented in the top photo. The above photo is a shot that Tammy took of me shooting the falls; people wandering everywhere and no real good spots to shoot from. I was standing on a stone wall in order to get above everyone’s head. Hopefully the top photo invokes a better response than the above.

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After a quick shower back at the hotel we walked down town near the Marine Park to hop on the Columbia Gorge Sternwheeler for our dinner cruise. We boarded just after 5:30 PM for a 6:00 PM departure. The boat was nice; built in nearby Hood River in the mid 1980’s. I was surprised that it only drafted 5 feet. Upon departure I was pleasantly surprised by the smoothness of the stern wheel drive. Even though it was still powered by a diesel engine, it produced nowhere near the vibration of a propeller drive. We had a couple of local brews with our dinner, which was average (the dinner… the brews were awesome). We cruised down stream under Bridge of the Gods to the Bonneville Dam, then turned around and headed up stream past Cascade Locks to Stevenson, WA. We then turned back to finish at our departure point at Cascade Locks. We enjoyed a beautiful sunset early on the cruise. Tammy thought it would have been better to cruise during the day, but I thought it was a perfect, relaxing ending to a busy day. Overall I thought it was a good value at $50.00 pp for dinner and two hour cruise.