Volcanos and Waterfalls

If you are just seeing this post but have not read about our trip-- go back and read about it in order. Start with July 8th post called "Vacation: Three beaches day" and read from there.


We were so sad to leave our cousins. But we have to go home sometime.

On the way home, we stopped a few places. First stop was Mt. St Helens! You can see the mountain in that break in the trees behind us. (just not with the camera.

I zoomed in and you can see it.

We learned a lot at the visitors centers.

Then we went up to Johnson's ridge which is super close to the mountain.

It is really interesting to learn about this active volcano.

The next day we went to Columbia River Gorge.

This gorge is so pretty and full of waterfalls.

Some waterfalls are right by the road, and some you hike a short way up.

There was a deer.

I don't remember the names of all of the falls. This one might be Bridal Veil Falls.

Gorgeous!

Multnomah Falls.
It is so beautiful- and the most famous.
There were millions of people at this waterfall. Literally millions- at the same time as us.

We hiked up to that bridge (with thousands of other people) Below is the upper waterfall.

The gorge is a little bit crowded- but the only one that has too many people was Multnomah. I saw that there was a freeway off ramp- people could just stop and see this one and then drive away. But we were there to see a lot of the falls.

Then we went to Horsetail falls.
This is what it looks like from the road.

There is a short hike that you can see the upper falls. You can see from this picture that you hike behind it.

There was also a wall that was weeping out water.

They went on a longer hike from there to another waterfall viewpoint.

Then back to the bottom of the horsetail falls.

This part of the world is beautiful and has so many cool things to see. We love it there. The only complaint from my kids is that the oceans need to be warmer.

We left the Gorge- wanting to drive as long as we could. We got to Boise and wondered if we should stop - but Andre was wanting to drive a little more. So at 11:30pm we got to Twin Falls ready to crash in a hotel. There were no hotel rooms in the town. One of the hotel clerks called around and all the rooms in the town were taken. So- Andre drove for 3 1/2 more hours and we were home! He is pretty awesome!

The problem was that I had put the key to our house somewhere in the car. It took about 20 minutes to find it. It was in a safe place! But at 3:00 in the morning you do not want to be searching for the key to your house. You want to crash in bed.

What a great trip. We loved it and we were tired afterwards!