Waterfall and Salmon

Hello and how is your weekend going?  I know for some of you it's over!  It's 10:45 am on Sunday for us and we're just enjoying a mellow morning.  I have a big bowl of sourdough pancake batter fizzing away in the kitchen, I'm going to make sourdough pancakes/flapjacks for lunch for Dayle, the boys and me.  We are taking care of the boys while our son and DIL are away for 4 days for their anniversary.  On Thursday I volunteered at Multnomah Falls with my friend Shirley.  There is not a lot of water coming over, but it's still pretty and you can feel the change of seasons in the air.  

We've had the hottest and driest summer in my memory.  Even the moss at the falls is crispy.  I wonder when the rains will come?

I was taking photos of the bridge and people are taking photos of us.. lol.

Remember this water amount and we'll compare it to after the rain and see how different it is.  The water comes from snow melt (which is over for now) and rain (which we've had very little of) and a spring - which happily produces a lot of water, so this falls goes all year.  I hope it never dries up!  Can you imagine?

The boys loved their gummy SNAKE we brought them from Sunriver.. :-)

On Friday I met Gracie for lunch at Bumper's Grill and then we went swimming for an hour.  Then we took the boys out to dinner.  Then yesterday I had a volunteer gig for the Friends of Vista House held at Rooster Rock - but it only lasted 1 1/2 hours - Dayle and the boys went with me and they played on the play structure there while D watched.  After my duty was over we headed to Bonneville Dam to see the Salmon swimming up the fish ladder - we are having the most fish swimming upstream since the dam was built!  Up to 70,000 fish a day!  I've never seen so many fish in the underground viewing area at the Dam interpretive center!

They were HUGE, too!  Up to 3 feet long and approximately 20 to 40 lbs!

Aren't they beautiful?

We then walked outside and watched the fish jumping up the levels of the fish ladder.  They built this ladder when they built the dam so the salmon could get around the dam and go upstream to spawn in their native stream beds.  

I tried hard to get a photo of them jumping over the ladders but they are too quick!

Here is a part of the dam that connects to the Washington side.  The gorge cliffs behind are the Oregon side.

They are letting water through one part of it.

Next up was the fish hatchery at the dam and first stop was the Sturgeon pond where you get to walk under ground level and there is a big window where you can see the big fish.. and they are HUGE!  There was one that was almost 12 feet long!  Isn't this one just cute?  LOL!

Do you have sturgeon where you live?  They are a prehistoric fish and produce caviar.  They are bottom feeders and live a long time.. over 100 years.  They can get to 20 feet and 1,500 lbs!

They also have several salmon and trout ponds at the fish hatchery, along with many many hatchery ponds filled with all ages of fish from 2 inches on up.

Our two grandsons scampered atop the rock pillars in the entrance to the hatchery.

After that we headed across the Bridge of the Gods to Stevenson WA where we tried out a pizza restaurant where we'd never been - it was good!  Then we drove up to Wind River and did some adventuring up into the mountains there, we never did find the river.. lol.. then we headed back to the bridge, crossed over and took the boys up to the East Wind Drive-In for ice cream, then quickly took the boys and the ice cream to the park play area nearby.  Hayden is on the tire swing on the left and Caleb is running along in the red shirt on the right.  

Isn't this a picturesque park?  It's the Port of Cascade Locks Marine Park and the Sternwheeler Columbia Gorge is at home here.

Every time I'm here I drive out to the end of the park on the East where there is a parking area where you can turn off your car engine and enjoy the river and the sound of the wind in the trees.  A great place to think.  Of course the boys wanted to run along the beach, why not?  The end to a busy and fun day.

The sternwheeler was out on a dinner cruise so I zoomed in and got a good photo of it out on the water.  Usually I'm ON the boat!

I have googled and looked for a photo of a young bear cub to show you - here is the closest thing I found to the 2 bear cubs we came upon on the road home from Kahneeta.  I'll never forget seeing them 15 feet ahead of me!

OK, time for me to get busy in the kitchen making sourdough flapjacks (that's what the pioneers and miners called them).  We're taking the boys to a movie this afternoon and then to dinner at Red Robin.  THEN.. baths so they'll be ready for school in the morning.  Whew!  I hope you have a fun week ahead!
((hugs)), Teresa :-)