It's been a month since we visited the Columbia River Gorge, but traveling and camping has been the priority and not a cell signal or public Wi-Fi. So, better late than never….
We left our second time staying overnight at the
Peter Skene Ogden State Park on 22 Jul 2019 and headed north on
U. S. Route 97. We drove through miles of cotton and alfalfa fields and the pretty little town of
Madras, Oregon. We had a view of
Mount Jefferson to the west, while rugged volcanic cliffs were to the east; and through a rather thick haze,
Mount Hood eventually became visible. I hadn't seen Mount Hood for twenty-two years! Fortunately, the closer we got, the clearer the sky became. We then drove west toward the busy metropolitan area of
Portland, Oregon, because it was Margaret's birthday, and she
really wanted lunch from
Native Foods Café. While there are three Native Foods Cafes in San Diego (our home base), there is only
one in the entire Pacific Northwest! That scrumptious lunch was served in the swanky
Bridgeport Village Mall in Tigard, Oregon. We parked in the shade to eat our lunches, which meant Peaches could be let out of her crate (happy girl!). Staying for a few hours allowed us to catch up on our iPhones before it was time to go to French Prairie, a nearby rest area to park overnight.
The next morning we drove through intense traffic in Portland to get to one of the most breathtaking areas in the world—the
Columbia River Gorge, where we spent the entire day in a state of wonder. (I'd been there several times when I lived in Portland back in the late '90s, but one can never experience this area too often. Margaret had only seen Multnomah Falls once, possibly in 2003.) The first waterfall we encountered on the
Historic Columbia River Highway was
Shepperd's Dell Falls. (We bypassed the actual first falls, Bridal Veil, on the way in
and out because the parking area was prohibitively busy.) Shepperd's Dell Falls are like a winding ribbon through the rough hillside of trees, ferns, and bushes; and the terrain makes the falls difficult to see
and to photograph in their entirety, as you can see below.)
Shepperd's Dell Falls. Photo by Virginia.