A Gorge-Us Day!

You might think from the pun in the title that Adam is writing this blog today. But, no, sadly I have soaked in some of his corny-ness being with the guy for 6+ years. Let me explain what I mean by Gorge-Us:

You see, we live in a wonderful part of the country called the Columbia River Gorge, otherwise known as "The Gorge". And yesterday, we had a family day, hence the "us". Get it?

Tired of yucky weather and being stuck inside for too long, we took full advantage of the partly cloudy, 30% chance of rain forecast (yes, if you live in the PNW, you look forward to days with partly cloudy, <50% chance of rain days. Especially in the late winter. It can sometimes mean you are going to get some SUN and only a few drops of rain if any).

I pulled out my handy-dandy "Curious Gorge" book. We have already completed a good portion of this book, but we had never seen the Bonneville Dam sights.  There was an easy and scenic waterfall hike just next to it, so we decided to tackle both, and possibly hit up one of the brewpubs located on the Washington side also close by.

First on our list for the family outing consisted of #7 in the Curious Gorge guidebook: "Wahclella Falls". At only two miles long, with a promising waterfall at the end, we decided Noella could handle this distance in the pack. She's been very into water these days and says it at least 134 times whenever we hike along the rivers, creeks and falls around here. Needless to say, she very impressed with this scenery too:

Wahclella Falls. Or "adah" or "wawah" as Noella likes to say (over and over).

 

At the end of the trail, picking up rocks and baby pine cones. 

I think this last 1/8th of a mile took us the same amount of the time as the rest of the hike (okay, not quite, but GEEZ come on Noella! We're on an agenda!)

Next on our family outing tour was #6 in the Curious Gorge guidebook: The Bonneville Dam. Another thing Noella is into these days is wildlife. She points out every single bird she sees. Loves dogs, cats and anything that closely resembles an animal. One cool thing about the Bonneville Dam is that it has fish ladders to help with the migration of the salmon. At the dam visitor center, you can go downstairs to the underwater fish viewing tanks to see the salmon that are trying to make their way up the Columbia to spawn. Some other cool things were the dam fish hatchery, as well as the the dam sturgeon and trout ponds.  Talk about fish galore! We got to see Herman, a 70 year old, 400+lb, 10 foot long sturgeon.  These fish have not changed at all in 100-200 million years. They looked like dinosaur fish! Again, I apologize for the cheesy dam jokes inserted above. My husband would be very disappointed if I did not add it in somewhere. Trust me, I heard it over and over as we were viewing all the dam sights.

Herman the Sturgeon

The third and final stop on our family fun day was more for mommy and daddy's enjoyment: Walking Man Brew Pub in Stevenson, WA. We crossed the Bridge of the Gods for some delightful brew and pubfare.  I enjoyed the Knuckle Dragger IPA, while Adam had the Homoerectus IPA (coming in at 9% alcohol level).  Noella slowly spiraled out of control, refusing to sit in her booster, or anywhere for that matter; and we hurriedly finished our drinks and dinner.  We did put her through quite a bit yesterday, so I'll let it slide.....

We look forward to many more outings and the weather turns nice again. I hope spring is close by!