On to Banks OR

Woke up to rain again this morning, at least it was just a drizzle and not a down pour.  Again it let up enough for to load up and be one our way.  I am sad to leave this beautiful spot, rain and all as it is such a scenic area.  I know we will be back someday.

The drive into Portland is a bit nerve racking, the roads are narrow and at 11 in the morning the freeway is crowded.  I was glad to get through it with out any problems.  GPS Lady guided us right! YAY!!!
Once out side Portland the scenery changed some what to more open farm land and less forest.  We don't have a long drive today, we are staying at the JJ Stub Stewart State Park, about 10 miles outside of Banks OR.
I was pleasantly surprised how nice this park is for a state park.  It has full hook ups, restrooms and showers. The spaces are very big with a lot of room between each spot.  They have areas for tents and trailers.  This is a very family friendly campground with lots for everyone one to do, not only hiking trails but miles of biking and horse riding trails.  But we are not here to hike, we are here for the car races in Banks on Saturday night.

Once we get set up we went into Banks for lunch.  Banks is very small but we did manage to find a little Mexican food restaurant. Joe had a delicious shrimp burrito and I had a shredded beef and green chili burrito.  They were so big I had a hard time finishing mine.  Guess I will skip dinner tonight.  Stopped to pick up some groceries and back to the park and a nap. (naps are becoming a habit)  Later went to the next town down that is suppose to be a little bigger than Banks, you could prove it by me.  The town is Vernonia.  We walked down main street a ways then decided to go have a beer.  We went into the Black Bear Coffee Co. who's motto is Just Suck It Up!  This is a coffee house/restaurant/bar, my kind of place.  Joe had a blue cheese burger and I just had jalapeno poppers and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale to drink.
Back at the park we discover the weekend crowd has arrived, there are hardly any empty spaces.  The tent area is full of little loud children, glad we are not down that way.  We are lucky enough to be parked next to the camp host.

Well it is getting late and I a tired!  Catch you all later!!!!!

Horse Tail falls, Oneonta falls and Triple Falls

This morning was beautiful the sun was out and the sky was very blue.  It was just to nice to stay inside, so we decided to take the trail in the campground to Horse tail falls, Oneonta falls and Triple falls, about a six mile round trip.  Not to much elevation gain, just about 800 ft.  But what it was as a little steep in places.

Horse Tail falls is the first falls you come to.

 This is a beautiful falls.  There is an area behind the fall and you can walk behind it.  You can see me standing behind it in the picture to the left.  Is called horse tail because of the way it falls then hits a little ledge and plunges down from there, like a horse tail.

Our next stop is a view point dedicated in Memory of  Glenn W. Replogle,  1974-1988. He fell off the ledge near this view point, he was only 14 yrs old.  How sad.
This view point is spectacular, you can see a big portion of the Columbia River and watch the boats and barges go by.  The train tracks are also just below you so you can watch the trains go by.  It is very scenic.

The next falls we come to is the Oneonta falls.  The neatest thing about this fall is the bridge you have to walk across that has this warning, makes you feel really safe crossing!  LOL

Oneonta Falls

Next stop is Triple Falls.  I really enjoyed visiting this one.  The scenery is beautiful along the trial, this is the section of the trail that gets a little steep.  I had to work for my view.

Steps made for someone with long legs :0(

Triple Falls

On the way back we stopped at the view point again and just relaxed a while watching the Columbia river.  What a beautiful day!!!!!

Cheers everyone!

Trip to Portland (6/18)

The sky is blue, the sun is out, the birds are singing, what a glorious morning.

Yesterday we woke up to gray skies and the threat of rain.  It didn't inspire be to get up and get going.  Plus I was still a little tired from yesterdays hike.  Even though it is chilly out, in the 50's I still managed to get heat rash where I had my knee brace and my ankle brace, guess I won't be wearing shorts for a while.

After breakfast and showers we decided to drive into Portland.  About half way there the sky started to clear up and the sun came out. I wanted to go to an REI store, they have several. The one we went to is right off the 405 in downtown Portland.  It is two stories and packed with goodies.  I was looking for a new trekking poles, I wanted ones with cork grips and quick release adjustments.  I found just what I was looking for, paid more than I wanted to but they should last me a long time.  Went upstairs to their clothing section hoping to find some good clearance deals.  The only thing I found was a really nice fleece vest for a good price.  Joe hates shopping, even in REI, so we bought our merchandise and went to lunch.  The guy at the checkout recommended we go to the Rouge Brewery about 3 blocks away.  He didn't steer us wrong.  I had grilled salmon and Joe had a filly cheese steak.  We were given samples of the days brew called American Amber.  It was good but I noticed on their list of beers a Chipotle Ale, YUM!  Joe didn't care of it so he got the American Amber but I did get the Chipotle Ale.  After lunch I went to stand up, not only is it yummy but potent.  I was rather fuzzy headed walking back to the truck.  By this time the skies were very blue and the sun very bright, we were happy campers.

As we were driving back to Ainsworth Park I thought I bet is going to be deary there, as we were warned that this area attracts the clouds.  But I was wrong it was still sunny with blue skies the rest of the day.  Joe went for a little hike and read my book and napped a little.

Today is beautiful and sunny not sure what is in store yet but I am sure we will have fun what ever we do.

Catch you all later!!!!

The many Falls hike (6/17)

Monday night Joe got in touch with a friend that we met at Usery Park in Mesa.  Mike lives in Portland and planned on taking us hiking while we are here.  It was set for 8:30 Tues. morning.
Of course we woke up to rain on Tues. morning.  But we got up and ready hoping it would stop.  Mike arrived at 8:30 and said the weather report said it should stop in about 1 hour.  So off we go.
We were going to the Eagle Creek park.  This is where the 14 mile (round trip) trail starts.

The only one we didn't to is Wahtum Lake.  We did add one that is not on the sign called the Cross Over.

All I can say as we start hiking is WOW!  This trail is spectacular.  The rain has stopped but it is still cloudy and dreary but it really adds to the beauty here.  We watch the clouds drift through the trees and are in awe.

We pass the punch bowl falls, it is small but still worth seeing.









Next we come to a falls that has no name, again worth seeing.

On we go to the half way point at High Bridge the view from this bridge will take your breath away.  I am not sure the pictures do it justice.  In the picture to the left you can see how narrow it is with high canyon walls that are covered with ferns and even have trees growing out of the walls.  Just beautiful.

Joe is fascinated with all the moss that grows on everything.

This is a close up of the canyon wall

Can you seen the falls in the background

Now comes the hard part for me I have to walk across the river on logs, I am still healing from my fall walking across the river in Lassen Park.  Luckily for me they had a rope strung across so you could keep your balance better, it was wet an slippery.

We were getting close to Ttunnel Falls, called this because there is a tunnel behind the falls.  It is really cool to walk behind the falls and come out to all the mist being blown at you.  Tunnel falls is quite big, we don't have anything that tells us how high it is, Joe thought about 225 ft.  It is much bigger than Reavis Falls that was 190 ft.  If you look closely you will see me getting ready to go behind the falls and the next pic I am coming out the other side.

 After Tunnel Falls we head to Cross Over falls.  The pictures will explain the name of the falls.  We stopped here and had lunch before heading back to the trail head a mere 7 miles away!!!!!  This trail continues on, I understand you can take it all the way to Mt. Hood!




 This was my favorite falls because it is so different.  I have never seen one that crosses over it's self like this one does.








The trip back to Mike's car was as beautiful as the trip in.  I was pretty tired by the time we were back at the car 7 hours from when we started.  What a great hike this was.  I think of all my hiking buddies when I do these hikes and wish you all were here to share them with us.

Moving on to Ainsworth State Park (6/15)

Woke up to dreary skies this morning, at least it isn't raining.  We get packed up and on our way.  It wasn't long before the rain started up again. :0(  I really could use some sunshine.  We made it to the park about     2 pm and it quit raining long enough for us to set up, the sun even made a short appearance.
It was again dreary and a little depressing.  Went for a walk around the park.  This is a beautiful park complete with full hookups.  This surprised me because it is in the middle of no where, Portland is the closest city about 35 miles away, then there is Hood River about 41 miles away.  There are a couple of smaller towns not much to them.  There are a couple of trails that start here at the park that go to waterfalls.

Monday morning dawned again with it raining.  Pat called to go over our mail.  We discovered that BCBS had canceled out insurance for non-payment.  We knew that had to be a mistake, they were suppose to be taking our payments out of Joe's pension.  So we spent about 3 hours on the phone with Fidelity, they handle all GM retirement problems.  No one could figure out what happened.  We were told we would be reinstated but we should have the payment taken out of our checking automatically.  Long story short we were transferred to yet another rep to accomplish this.  She again looked at our account and it is a mess.  She tried to set up auto payment but couldn't because we are already signed up for it to be taken out of our pension.  So why wasn't it.  They have opened a ticket to find out what went wrong.  In the mean time we have been reinstated but not fully until Thursday.  So all this time Joe and I have been doing some pretty big hikes that could have injured one or both of us at any time with no knowledge that we didn't have insurance.  What a mess!
I was pretty stressed by the time we were off the phone so we decided to go for a nice drive in the rain up to Hood River.  We spent the night there on one of our bike trips and it is a really nice town.  On the way we stopped at Cascade Lock and had lunch at a cafe next to the Columbia River.  This is one big river.  We watched the big paddle boat come in and let passengers off, not many on it, and then take more on, only about 4 people.  Lunch was pretty good for this little cafe inside the visitor center.
Hood River was as I remembered it, we went to the hotel we stayed in and to the brewery we ate dinner at Joe thought about going in and having a beer, but I was cold and a beer did not sound good.  We went to a coffee house and I had an Almond Joy Latte and Joe got an ice tea.  Low and behold the sun came out for about 15 minutes.  You learn to appreciate the sun every time is shows it self.  I know most of you are fighting 110 degree temps, I say appreciate it, it could be cloudy and rainy everyday.

On our way back to the park the rain started up again. :0(