Western Oregon to Eastern Washington

Once again, we scheduled our transit of a major metro area (this time Portland) for a weekend morning, and didn't have much traffic at all.

Not only was traffic light, but Mt. Hood was out (as was Mt. Helens,) showing themselves against what would become a blue sky. Our route for the day was as direct as practical, meaning I-84 headed up the Columbia River Gorge.

We did take the old highway for a ways, hoping to find adequate parking so that we could take a waterfall hike, but all the trail heads were parked full.

As we approached Multnomah Falls, we spotted one place where we could park the truck and trailer, so we were able to join the hordes who had stopped to view the very popular double-drop falls. It's tall enough that by the time you get the whole thing in frame, you really don't notice all the people on the bridge above the lower falls.

There wasn't much traffic on the river. We spotted two or three small sets of barges headed up river, and a few fisherman. The wind was calm enough that the wind surfers stayed home.

Our home for the night was Plymouth Park, an Army Corp of Engineers park in the big town (don't blink!) of Plymouth. It's the Washington side of the river, immediate west of the I-82 crossing. Umatilla, Oregon anchors the south end of the bridge.

The park is about evenly split between full hook-up sites (almost all pull-through) and water/electric (30 amp) sites. The FHU sites are priced at $27 this year but the Senior Pass results in a 50% reduction. We pulled in without a reservation on a Sunday afternoon - wouldn't have been possible the previous evening. They say it almost always has space during the week and is generally full on weekends.

The next morning we continued our trek, heading northeast towards Spokane. We stopped in the small town of Connell for fuel and visited some geocaches.

There was a series of three geocaches associated with some of the public art. I especially liked this sculpture in front of the community bank. The mortgage portion of the sculpture says it's for a manure spreader. Pretty appropriate in a farming community.

There were several murals in the town. I especially liked this one, and would have loved the opportunity to see the actual combine. The combine was pulled by a team of 28 horses.

We're tucked down a narrow driveway for a couple weeks while we help on some house projects with both a 90 year old Craftsman style home and a new construction home. So nice to have family with a project list!

Oregon Geocaches

Like elsewhere this past year, we've done some geocaching where ever we go. On this trip, I've been intentional about trying to locate some of the caches with lots of Favorite points, to see what ideas we might be able to steal. Here's a few.

Apparently, BJ hasn't learned to not look down the barrel.

This is one of the ones that Spencer told me about when he visited after Christmas. We made one together that was put out as part of our Waterworks series. What was special about this one was to see that we signed the log next to his ink from last Christmas.

This cache isn't what it seems, but what caches ever are? It had 140+ favorite points

I really like the combination of a neighborhood Free Library and a cache somewhere nearby.

This one was part of an annual geo trail in Newberg, mounted near a fire facility.

This one was my second favorite of our time in Oregon. A very nice, appropriate placard!

I don't have a picture of my favorite. I thought I took one, but it's not on the camera. Perhaps that's better, because I fully intent to leverage the concept for a new cache of my own.

Newberg, Oregon

From the looks of the main street, Newberg is rightly proud of the local University. We hadn't paid any attention when we arranged to stay in a driveway near campus.

Turns out, the week we were there was finals week, culminating with graduation the afternoon before we left town. If anything, traffic was a bit more intense than usual, especially in the neighborhoods near the campus.

If you dig enough, you discover that Herbert Hoover spent a good chunk of his youth in Newberg. His grandfather was the President of the predecessor institution to George Fox University, and he was a student there.

Downtown is vibrant. One now empty lot is used as pocket park, complete with an interesting waterfall art installation. The other side of the wall houses the local bakery which does a booming business. We found the combination when out walking with the dog to be highly advantageous.

It's not every town that has a waterbirth center in one of the downtown store fronts.

I didn't know what to make of the name of the small grocery store nearby, or the parking note for the Newberg Wine Lockers. Newberg is now located in the center of a robust grape & wine area with lots of tasting rooms.

We seem to have timed our visit with the arrival of the flowers. Everything seemed to be in bloom. Some I recognized from my youth on the wet side of Washington, but very few had a name that came to mind except for the Iris and the rose.

Rhododendrons were in bloom everywhere we went. Red is the most common color, but we saw several other colors as well.

Lots of reasons to like the Newberg area. We'll be back!

I goofed and didn't get a picture of the Vintages RV Park where they have a row of restored vintage trailers that they use as nightly rentals.