Portland Day Two

Even though Ryan and I were completely delirious by the time we reached Jeff and Karen's house, we managed to stay up a few hours. First of all, we still didn't have our luggage, so I was hoping I would get it before I actually crawled into bed for the night. We stayed up and played a few games of pinball. Jeff and Karen are huge pinball fans, and have had a pinball machine since I have known them. When they moved from St. Louis, they sold the one they had and bought the new Lord of the Rings game when they got to Portland. So, we had a lot of fun playing that for awhile before going to bed. I'm positive I had been up for over 24 hours by that time.

The airport was going to deliver our luggage after it arrived. Luckily for us, it arrived in the middle of the night, so it was there on the front porch by the time we woke up in the morning.

After a shower and a good night's sleep, Ryan and I were raring to go see some sights. Karen had to work that day, so Jeff was our tour guide for the first few hours.

First, Jeff took us on a mountain hike to see some waterfalls. Portland sits in the middle of the Cascade Mountains, so no matter which way you look, it's beautiful.

Our first stop was Wahkeena Falls. It was pretty cool. We thought it was huge until we saw the next waterfall. There wasn't much of a hike to Wahkeena. It was really nice. The weather that day was awesome. I think it stayed in the high 70's with zero humidity the whole time we were there. Perfect!!!!This is Wahkeena Falls. We were there pretty early in the day, so the sun was still coming from the East creating little rainbows through the mist.

Ryan had to push the rules and climb over the barricade to get right next to the falls. Luckily, he didn't fall on all the moss on the rocks. He was pretty wet when he climbed back over to us though. Crazy kid!!!!This area was next to the parking lot for the next falls we went to see. This is a small part of an old canal that branches off of the Columbia River.

Next up was Multnomah Falls. This was the big waterfall that came with a big hike. Since there was no humidity, it felt a little cool when we left the house that morning, so I wore jeans. I was kicking myself in the middle of the hike. It wasn't really hot, but the mile hike to the top of the falls had me sweating anyway!!
This photo was taken from the canal looking up at Multnomah. That's the hike that made me break a sweat!!!! Now you understand, right?

This building was at the bottom of the waterfall. It had a little snack shop and gift shop. I thought it was beautiful sitting at the bottom of this giant hill.Hiking up to the top of the falls was totally awesome!!! Everything is so green and lush. The weather up there is very mild in the winter, so there is a lot of vegetation that grows year round. A lot of the trees in this forest were covered in moss. Everything around us seemed so full of life. This was taken from the top of the falls. It is looking out over the Columbia River, which divides Oregon and Washington. We got there shortly after I made Ryan and Jeff stop for a break. I told myself at the beginning that I was not going to say a word no matter how tired I got. I was just planning on hiking along with the guys...no biggie. Well, I thought "no biggie" most of the way. But, when it got to the point that I thought my heart was going to pound through my throat, I pushed my pride aside, and asked to stop for a break. I didn't realize that our stop was only a few feet away.The view from the top of the falls was like nothing I had ever seen. If you look to the right side of the photo above, you can see the cars in the parking lot where we started out......long way down, huh?Had to get a picture of my handsome man at the top once we reached our destination :-) We were typical tourists with our cameras out all week long!!!This tree shows a pretty good example of all the moss covering everything. It actually made things very slippery if you got off the path much, but it looked really cool!! Most of the way up we had a path with a lot of swithbacks, just zig-zagging back and forth. You couldn't get too far off the paths because you had a cliff on each side. One going up, and one going down.

After hiking for a few hours, we decided to play some disc golf. I was a little worried that we would be doing some more uphill junk, but it turned out to be a lot of flat ground where we went.We went to Rooster Rock State Park. That's Rooster Rock behind us. The park was beautiful. There were huge cliffs on one side and The Columbia River on the other. I used all that beauty as an excuse for how badly I played....wish I had an excuse like that around here.

Just before we left the park, I saw what I thought was an eagle. So, I asked Jeff, "Um, Jeff, would it be possible that I might have just seen a bald eagle?" He said, "sure!!!" So, there I was, sitting in the parking lot at Rooster Rock State Park watching not only one, but three bald eagles flying overhead. It was amazing!!! They flew over a few times and landed in a nearby tree. Ryan actually got a few good pictures of them with his 35mm camera.....but the digi cam couldn't handle the zoom that we needed. The trees are so freaking tall there that even when they landed, Ryan had to get his super duper telephoto lense out. it was so awesome to see them so close up. They sounded really pretty. It surprised me. I always thought they would have some mean sounding scowl, but they actually sang back and forth to eachother beautifully.

By the time we finished playing disc golf, Karen was off work and waiting for us to get home. We went back to their house and called some other friends who moved to Portland so we could make dinner arrangements.

Our friends Jason and Jen Tenbrook moved out there just about the same time Jeff and Karen did this past winter, so we wanted to make sure we got to see them while we were there. They recommended a Hawaiian restaurant called Bamboo Grove, so that's where we went for dinner. It was DELICIOUS!!!!!!Now, I know this picture doesn't look too good, but don't let it fool you!!! That pile of meat was some of the best, most tender, most delicious food I have ever put into my mouth. They had a deal where you could buy amounts in family sizes and eat family style passing large bowls of food around to share. That was supposed to feed four people according to the menu.......it fed six of us, and we still had leftovers!!!! But, if you saw the huge Hawaiian guys cooking in the back, it made a little more sense.

The light colored meat is Kaluha pork, and the darker meats are teryaki pork and chicken. it was served with rice and pasta salad.....Yummy!!!!!After dinner at Bamboo Grove, we went to the coolest bar I have ever been to!!!

I was so distracted by all the fun stuff in the bar that I didn't take any pictures....Dang it!!!

I did find this picture on their website of one row of pinball machines. The bar was called Ground Kontrol. They had live music, mostly punk bands, a bunch of old school arcade games, and a whole floor of pinball machines. We had a blast there.

By the time we all finished off a few games, we were pretty tired, so we headed back to Jeff and Karen's and called it a night.