Washington - Day One

We arrived across the Washington State border this morning fairly early from Oregon. We chose to go toward Portland along the Washington side of the Columbia River Gorge. Two years ago we traveled the length of the Gorge along the Oregon side and found the WA side to be interesting, also. One of these shots is near the Portland end of the Gorge, another is across the river from Multnomah Falls. We saw this up close and personal two years ago on the OR side and it was magnificent.
Even though we saw it today across the expanse of the river, it was still impressive.

The Bonneville Dam is the other photo. This is remarkable due to the fact that at this time there is controversy between the Feds and the Environmentalists over the trapping/killing of seas lions who camp out every year at the base of the dam and eat a ton of salmon who use the fish ladders to go to their spawning grounds up river each year. It was so interesting because as we stopped alongside the river/dam to take these photos we saw lots of sea lion heads pop up for air, so they were there in force. I don't seem to have caught any of them in the photos, but they were there, probably munching away underwater on the many salmon.

We are staying two nights at a nice Best Western motel in Tumwater, WA (home of Olympia beer and their Artesians!) and then early Saturday morning we will head for Sea-Tac airport to fly to Vancouver to begin our Alaskan adventure. It is nice to be back in the Northwest again!