I am taking liberty with my Good Morning Gloucester postings, and leaving Cape Ann for the Pacific Northwest, to cruise the Columbia and Snake Rivers.
Flying into Portland, Oregon. Mt St Helens and Mt Adams are northeast of the city.Setting out eastward up the Columbia River before breakfast, on our quiet first morning.Climbing Beacon Rock was the most challenging of the 3 hikes offered onshore today.A Bald Eagle in the trees, along the shore.An Osprey supervised passage through our first lock at Bonneville Dam.Multnomah Falls is the most popular destination, on the Oregon side of Columbia Gorge.We got familiar with ‘guilloutine” locks where the downstream gate drops from above. On the upstream side (beyond), the gate doesn’t swing open when the lock is flooded, but vanishes to the bottom of the river.Washington and Oregon each have about 1,000 wineries, stretching east from the Pacific into Idaho, where our cruise ended. We had regular tastings at vineyards and on our National Geographic ship.Zodiacs were our transportation to shore events and to explore smaller rivers, like the Palouse.It was drier in eastern Washington State, where we branched onto the Snake River, which experienced drought and wildfires during the summer.Palouse Falls, up the narrowing Palouse River.Last exploration of nesting areas and 11,000 year old Indigenous habitation on the Palouse River.
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