This weekend we went to Beaverton, Oregon to visit the Nortons. While we were there we also went to the Apple Store and bought a MacBook for Drew. He decided to "defer" his high school graduation gift until after his mission so he could have an up-to-date computer for the bulk of his college years. His MacBook is a white 13-inch, 2.4 GHz intel core 2 duo processor, 2 GB RAM, 160 GB hard drive and has a double-layer superdrive (in English that means it burns DVDs!). Since he is a college student he received a discount on the computer and a free iPod Touch (although he decided to pay to have an upgraded model).
On the way to the Portland area we stopped at Multnomah Falls just as the sun was leaving the gorge. There was a beautiful rainbow at the top of the falls which I tried to capture with my digital camera. I don't think this photo does it justice.
Drew, Kyle and Bruce were ahead of me as I went under the bridge to the falls area. When I came around the corner Kyle was laughing, but I didn't see Drew right away. I looked where Kyle was looking as he laughed and there, up to my left, stood Drew in the pose you see below:
Benson Footbridge over the lower falls
Kyle and Drew in front of the lower pool of Multnomah Falls
Upper falls
Video of the Falls
There is a tree at the top of Multnomah Falls that looks as though it is ready to crash into the upper pool.
This sign is in front of the Nortons' next door neighbor's house. We couldn't resist seeing if Kyle had some "junk in the trunk."
We drove home through the Columbia Gorge today. This time we chose to cross over the Columbia River on the
"Bridge of the Gods" (kind of scary!) near Cascade Locks, just upstream from Bonneville Dam (open Google Maps). That means most of our trip was on the Washington side of the gorge. Since the highway on the Washington side never leaves the gorge, we had a view of the river all the way to McNary Dam, where we turned north.
Along the way we stopped at
Sam Hill's "Stonehenge" monument. It was the first World War I memorial in the United States. Sam Hill, a pacifist, erected the monument to honor those of Klickitat County, Washington who died in the war.
While on the bluff, below the Stonehenge, Kyle mentioned that this would be a great place to hang glide, since it was steep and there were lots of thermals on a hot day. We got back in the car and went about five miles down the road. As we were going around a corner and down a hill, we looked up and saw two paragliders. Bruce took lots of pictures of them. I'll try to post some good ones here tomorrow.
On most days, the Columbia River generates very stiff winds in the gorge. This makes it a great place to windsurf, hang glide and generate wind power. There are many wind mills up on the bluffs of the Washington side (don't think Oregon likes windmills!). I tried to take a few pictures of windmills as we drove along. Although, this being a calm day, the windmills were not turning. When we drove through on Thursday the wind was howling and the mills were spinning at about 12 RPM.
(P.S. Pictures with random cut-off daddy bits are my favorite.)
I wanted a shot of the windmills with the power line towers. The towers almost obliterated my view of the mills.
We are beginning to reap what we have sown this year. Above is a picture of the first peach, third cucumber and fourth tomato of the season. We expect a bumper crop of tomatoes and peaches. Bruce even put bird netting around the peaches because Allison was tired of cutting out the parts the birds have eaten every time she wants a peach. We watch with anticipation as the first blush comes to the peaches as they ripen. Patiently we wait until the fruit has a little give when grasped and gives off a "peachy" smell (imagine that!). Unfortunately the birds like the peaches a day or two before we do! The netting should help us get peaches that have not been sampled.
