last weekend of the summer

Jeff took a couple of vacation days around the long weekend so we could get away for a nice 5 day family vacation to enjoy the very last bit of summer vacation.  We took advantage of living here in the PNW (that's Pacific Northwest for all of you non-PNWers...), we visited the Columbia River Gorge, Mt St Helens and Mt Rainier.  There was plenty of driving but listening to the Frozen soundtrack and watching Harry Potter movies helped the kids pass the time.  At one point I turned off the dvd player in the van and made the kids look at the amazing scenery.  They all looked up, said "yeah that looks nice", and promptly asked when the movie would be starting up again.  Ah well, at least I tried.

The only thing I didn't enjoy about this trip was some of the driving in the mountains.  The curvy roads that lead up the mountains are narrow, and the sheer cliffs on one side with massive drop offs are terrifying (no guard rails, no large buffer zone, NOTHING).  I may have used the phrase "don't drive over the cliff and make us plunge to our deaths!" once or twice or twenty-five times to Jeff.  Having loud sing-a-longs to "Let it go" and "Love is an open door" over and over again did make things less stressful.


First up on our list of fun outdoor adventures was hiking around the Columbia River Gorge.  Day one was spent driving 3 hours south to Vancouver, WA (yes, there's another Vancouver - who knew?).  Then it was on to Multnomah Falls.  What a beautiful spot to visit - the falls are a big tourist attraction with a shop and food around the bottom.  The promise of ice cream after climbing to the top of the falls and back down again helped the kids with the steep hike of switchback after switchback to get to the top.

looking up at the falls

view from the top of the falls...if you look closely you can see the bridge and walking path on the right

    ice cream - they earned it!

The next day we stopped at a different set of waterfalls - Horsetail falls.  This was a much easier climb to the top and included a cool cavern where we walked behind the falls.  We also visited Bonneville Dam and drove into Mt Hood which has a beautiful waterfront park and we saw kite surfers out on the water.

    family picture at the foot of Horsetail Falls in Oregon

    cool cavern behind the falls

    taking a break on the hike

shadow puppets...this is what happens when we go in to watch the Bonneville Dam informational movie and we are the only people in the theater

we found a nice park near Bonneville Dam so we stopped for lunch and play

Next up was visiting Mt St. Helens.  After the 1980 eruption, the area around the volcano was designated as a national monument with several visitors centers and viewing points.  We stopped at two different visitors centers where we learned a lot about the days leading up to May 18, 1980 when the eruption occurred.  It's amazing to see exactly what happened, to see how the landscape changed and how much scientists learned about volcanic eruptions from this one.  Something I didn't know, Mt St Helens erupted in what they call a lateral blast.  That means the side blew off the volcano and stone was hurled sideways at tremendous speeds, destroying a large area of lakes and forests.  We weren't able to see the top of Mt St. Helens because of clouds, but they told us it's only visible about 100 days of the year.  Even without seeing the top of the volcano it's a spectacular view looking around at the valley and mountains.

    listening to the Park Ranger tell the story of eruption

    Mt St Helens...we couldn't see the summit but the rest of the view was still spectacular (when you get this high up the mountain, even at the end of August it's cold!)

    sitting on the edge of the world (just kidding - there was nice, big, safe ledge behind them)

what kind of playground did they have at the visitor center?  One with a big, grey volcano slide of course

We saved the best for last...Mt Rainier...14,410 feet high, an integral part of the Washington landscape.  We see it from a distance almost every day.  Jeff really wanted to see the summit, he had gone hiking here in July and wasn't able to see it then.  But after having a cloudy day for Mt St Helens we weren't getting our hopes up about seeing the summit.  We spent our first day hiking around the Sunrise visitors center and sure enough, clouds were covering most of Mt. Rainier.  The next day started out bight and clear so we took the gondola up to the top of Crystal Mountain.  This is what we saw when we arrived at the top.  Here we were at 6,856 ft elevation.  We learned they often have snow available for skiing here until late June and sometimes even early July.

our view of the summit when we reached the top of Crystal Mountain

riding down on the gondola to the bottom of the hill...the kids enjoyed waving at everyone going up past us

Junior Park Ranger Jillian at your service!  Jillian and Leah both enjoyed the Junior Ranger programs at the visitors centers, they each earned two different badges at Mt St Helens and another one in Sunrise at Mt Rainier.

pretty wildflowers at the top of Crystal Mountain

on our hike at Sunrise - Jillian did an excellent job of keeping track of everything we saw for the scavenger hunt part of earning their Junior Ranger badges

that's Mt Rainier off in the distance, the white snowy part is one of the biggest glaciers on Mt Rainer, Emmons Glacier

this hiking trail was nice and easy with an amazing view of the glaciers and valley

eating s'mores and playing games in the condo we rented on Crystal Mountain.  We were going to do a campfire but it was just too darn cold so I cheated and used the oven to make s'mores...they were just as gooey and delicious.  We did however go for a swim in the outdoor pool despite the chilly temps.  The pool was heated so being in there was very nice (getting out though was very, very cold!).

This was such a great family vacation - plenty of time spent together, lots of outdoor hiking and exercise, amazing views and we even learned a lot about volcanos (which is good since we now live near one!).  I'm thankful we are getting the opportunity to explore a new part of North America we had never seen before we moved here.