Tom McCall Nature Preserve

This was another stop as we drove home from Oregon---I had read that the wildflowers were beautiful in the Spring, so we stopped to eat our lunch and go on a little hike. We didn't get to do the whole hike (around a "permanent pond," as I kept pointing out to Sam on the hike map---I don't know why I found that phrase so funny) but what we saw was SO lovely. There were a few yellow and white flowers still out, but mostly it was huge sweeping fields full of blue.

I think these are called "Bachelor's Buttons" or cornflowers. Daisy had to hold one still for me while I took a picture, because there was a constant wind making them wave back and forth with the grass!

There were a few of these purple flowers too---I don't know their name

To get here, you just get off the regular Columbia River Highway at Mosier and go East on the old scenic Highway 30. It takes you up onto a plateau overlooking the gorge and the river. You're not even that far up, but the views are amazing! You drive through pretty orchards as you drive up the plateau, and then suddenly: vast meadows of wildflowers! The place we stopped is Rowena Crest Viewpoint, and the Tom McCall Preserve and the hiking trail are right across the road from the viewpoint.  If I lived closer I would want to go here every day between April and June.

I'm pretty sure that's Mt. Hood in the background

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Bonneville Dam, Multnomah Falls

To break up the drive a bit on our way home, we stopped at Bonneville Dam. We do love a good dam in this family, and we seek them out whenever possible. This dam is quite interesting because of the changes made in it over the years. We went on a tour of the powerhouse and enjoyed it immensely!

Huge generators (turbines are below, with the orange stripe)

Junie by one of the stator coils

Our tour guide told us that a huge chunk fell off of this mountain and dammed the Columbia River in Prehistoric times. Much of that landslide later eroded away, but that's what gave the river its distinctive shape and two-channel flow pattern.

We loved watching fish jump up the fish ladders

And Daisy also loved this huge turbine, evidently.

Fish ladder from below

Lampreys! If there's one piece of information I know in this world, it's what a lamprey has: a round sucking mouth with rasping teeth. I learned it in 10th-grade biology and I have been repeating it frequently ever since (ask anyone). So you can imagine my pleasure and delight at seeing one in the flesh. Round sucking mouth! Rasping teeth! It's all there.

Seb poses precariously on a hill

We were pleased that our path also took us right by Multnomah Falls. I hadn't planned to make a special trip there since we'd already seen such great waterfalls, but when we saw that it was right by us, we stopped and made the quick hike up to the bridge. It was beautiful.

I love the way the water fans out like lace on the rock.

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Cedar Wetlands

Right in Rockaway Beach, there's an old-growth Cedar Wetlands Preserve with one of the biggest cedar trees in Oregon in it. We had some little difficulty finding the trail (the instructions I found online were out of date, but I luckily also stumbled on this post which gave the real location of the trailhead: you take Washington Street (right off the 101) toward the mountains (away from the ocean) and turn left on Island Street. At the end of Island Street is the little trailhead. It's right in the middle of a residential neighborhood, but once you duck around the first tree, it's like you stepped into the middle of the wilderness. It's so beautiful! It's more of a walk than a hike, although there are some slippery spots (it's a wetlands, after all!). Soon you come to the huge cedar tree, which has a nice boardwalk around it.

I was afraid that after seeing the huge redwoods, all other trees would look small and unimpressive, but not so! This tree was so cool and knobby. And the whole forest was dripping with green plant life. I just never get tired of it. (Nor of saying that I don't get tired of it, apparently.)

Near the trailhead

Nothing to do with the cedar wetlands; just a street sign we saw in the area

I love the moss enrobing this log!

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Tide Pools

We drove up to Cannon Beach one morning to see the tide pools. Sam and I had been to Haystack Rock before on another trip, but never at low tide, and it was interesting how different everything seemed! My mom said she used to spend a week in a little cottage near here every year when she was a little girl.

I hadn't realized how rocky it was---SO many little secret places for crabs and starfish and mussels to hide!

We couldn't decide if we liked the starfish better,

or the anemones, which would squinch up when you stroked them. Fun!

This seagull is quite pleased with his catch! Poor starfish.

I was very excited that it happened to be nesting season for the tufted puffins! (Just SAYING "tufted puffin" makes me happy.) Haystack rock was just covered with them, and with gulls and cormorants and all sorts of other birds. There were some bird watchers there with telescopes, and they let us look at the birds. The puffins make their burrows in the grassy areas on the rock. It was really helpful to have one of the birders tell us how to tell the different kinds of birds apart from far away (based on speed of wingbeat and silhouette, etc).

I couldn't get a good picture from below, but see? You can certainly tell he's a puffin, anyway. So cute! Here is a better picture of a tufted puffin.

The birds were so beautiful and seemed so happy, flying around over the water. :)

Gorgeous views on the way back down toward Rockaway Beach---I love the gradient of sand to water to sky!

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Steam Train to Garibaldi

I was excited to see there was a steam train that ran through Rockaway Beach, because the kids have always wanted to see a working steam locomotive! I wanted them to ride it so much that I specifically made sure we were staying through a weekend because the train only runs on Saturdays and Sundays (this time of year, anyway). It's a pretty short train ride, it just goes down the coast for a few miles and then back up, about an hour and a half total. But it's beautiful and even if it hadn't been, we were riding a train! Automatic fun.

We made sure to get there early so we could look the train over and see all the pistons and cylinders up close. We heard the train whistle from our cottage as the train came by, and I've never seen the kids get their shoes on and ready to go so fast! They were so excited.

The fireman was so nice! He saw how interested all the kids were in the train, and let them come up into the cab and look around at all the valves and pipes. We could feel the heat, and see the fire glowing yellow in the firebox! This steam locomotive runs on oil, the man told us.

Junie got all sooty in the cab, which seemed right somehow.

We walked through the indoor car, but decided we'd rather sit outside in the roofless car. It was cloudy and kind of misty, but not cold.

When the train started up, it was so loud and exciting! Whooshing and hissing and clouds of steam everywhere.

Such pretty scenery along the coast! I could never get tired of it.

At Garibaldi you can get off and look around at some of the other old trains. There's a little playground to play on, and boats in a harbor.

These little ones were always picking daisies and buttercups, everywhere we went!

Daisy was very impressed by the conductor and asked me to take her picture with him.

Marigold enjoyed the ride SO much! Lots of cars and people waved at the train as it went by, and Goldie just waved and waved back at them grandly, like she was royalty.

Every time the steam whistle blew, she laughed and laughed and laughed, and she loved the wind blowing through her hair (fuzz). She seemed to think everything had been arranged specifically for her personal enjoyment. It was so cute!

We just loved watching the steam drift up over the beautiful green forests. Oregon is such a great place!

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