Day 40 - Portland, Oregon

Today is Saturday, day 40 already! Well, we met our bus bright and early this morning at 8:00 AM sharp to go out to Mt. St. Helens. The weather was a bit overcast but no rain so far. We headed out and our 1st stop was Silver Lake visitor center where we watched a film, Intro to Mt St. Helens!

Not too long after our stop we headed to lunch!!  The Hoffstadt Bluffs.  Very nice enjoyed by all!  Next stop Johnson Ridge visitor center.  It was raining and we only saw the bottom of the Mt.  Boo! 

Top of Mt. St. Helens in the clouds

Mt. St. Helens erupted on May 18th, 1980.  The extensive amount of ash and rock filled the valleys below draining all of its small lakes.  Farther away pumice and ash formed layers that buried the landscape to depths of 10 feet or more.  The blast traveled up to 300 miles per hour taking the lives of 57 souls!  Most got out with their lives due to early warnings!

May 18, 1980

Toutle Valley filled with ash and rock

More devastation in the valley

Old growth forest - leveled

Five smaller explosive episodes occurred from May 25th thru Oct 16^th, 1980. Mt. St. Helens elevation before: 9,677 feet, after: 8,363 feet.  3.7 billion cubic yards of volume removed!  Buried 14 miles of the Toutle River Valley to an average depth of 150 feet, some depths up to 600 feet deep!  Wow!

Before: Elevation 9,677

After:  Elevation 8,363

All and all it was an awesome feat produced by "Mother Nature!!

Home safe and sound by 4:00 due to our great bus driver Karen. Tks. Karen! :-)

Phil & Sue Schaaf #1

Day 39 - Portland, Oregon

We had a great visit to OMSI, (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) which clearly has informative and easy to understand exhibits about science and industry.  It is dedicated to family orientation, but us “old timers” also learned a lot about the various subjects.

The visit was started with a movie at a first class IMAX Theater with the subject being the North Pole/Arctic area with emphasis on the Polar Bear and how it lived in the area in the past, and now with less ice.  The movie shots clearly show that some dedicated people were involved in collecting this footage of the Polar Bear and other animals living and roaming in the ice/snow/water environment in the Arctic.

IMAX Movie "To the Arctic"

Some of the main exhibits features:

1.     Body World, the brain, forming of children, etc.

Dick and Cloma learn
about animal thinking

2.     What animals think and their positive relationship with humans

3.     Natural disasters around the world

4.     A planetarium with laser show

5.     All types of educational exhibits demonstrating many of the things we learned in school such as “probability, electrical systems, various types of machines, including very high power diesel generators, and many other machines that are used in our everyday world. 

Probability relates to the life prediction and measured results for the life of a high power vacuum tube.  Some last a long time and some short, but most fall into the center of the probability curve demonstrated in the inserted picture.  In one actual case, some tubes lasted 50,000 hours and some failed early but most followed the center of the probability curve where the major number of tubes life fell into the 20,000 hour range.  So a 10,000 hour warranty was a practical marketing observation, even in early predictions.

A Clear Probability Exhibit 

Boys hair standing up at
static electric exhibit

All about Nano (small)

Cloma learns about Magnetism

Skeleton of Ancient Animal

Einstein and the Telegraph

I can think of many other practical industrial applications which clearly related to the great learning exhibits at OMSI!I consider the displays one of the best collections that I have seen during our travels.

6.     And last, a first class OMSI story for our girls.  Clearly, the visitors with school age children dominated the exhibits and in many cases were deeply involved in working of the many exhibits.  (Hence, the noise level was high).  In one case I saw a boy very interested in how a computer worked in a very excellent exhibit which demonstrated all the many sections of a modern computer and how they contributed to the clearly interesting working of a computer today. 

In another case, a boy was stacking various blocks to show how a carbon atom looked in its micro state.  (I thought the demonstrations were outstanding for those interested “kids” (older and young).

All about computers

Many of the exhibits clearly demonstrated how the various forces of nature work in such areas as centrifugal forces, etc., in very practical demonstrations.

The pictures included herein show a few of the outstanding practical exhibits.  Our group can relate to many of these practical exhibits as we review our education, working experience plus retirement.

Cloma and Tom Yingst Rig#22

Day 38 - Portland, Oregon

What a beautiful, warm, sunny day it was as we set off on a comfy tour bus via the freeway through the city of Portland for a drive through the National Scenic Area on the Columbia River Gorge Road. On our way through the city, our guide pointed out several sites: Mt. Hood covered in snow (but for once not covered in clouds); Portland’s old Fort Vancouver where the Hudson Bay Company did business way-back-when; Government Island (originally named Diamond Island by Meriwether Lewis because of it’s shape) where the Lewis & Clark entourage camped both going to and coming from their West Coast adventure; Mt. St. Helen, not as tall as it once was; and the dykes along both sides of the river, built to keep the river water from flooding the surrounding areas in both Washington and Oregon.

Mt. Hood

Factoid #1: Mt. St. Helen, called the “ice cream cone” mountain because of its shape, lost 1000 ft. in height when the volcano of 1980 took a big “bite”.

Reaching the Gorge, we drove along the Sandy River on the Historic Oregon Trail. This river was originally called the Quicksand River in the L & C journals, named such because of the near loss of one of the members of the group due to the unstable river bed. We also learned from our guide that the Sandy River is full of steelhead and salmon. (Attention all fishermen!)

Further along the road, we stopped at Vista House where we enjoyed a walk-around and took pictures of the view of the Columbia River below 

Vista House

View from Vista House

before dropping the 800 feet (by bus, of course) to the bottom of the Gorge. There we saw beautiful Multnomah Falls, an over 600 ft. two-stage waterfall, and had a delicious lunch in the restaurant while enjoying a view of the falls.

Factoid #2: There are ten major year-round waterfalls over 100 feet high on the Oregon side of the Columbia River .

Factoid #3: Sacagawea saw sea lions in the Columbia River, and they still may be seen there today.

After lunch we passed a large osprey nest atop a tall pole (complete with a baby osprey peeking over the edge of the nest) as we motored on to the Bonneville Dam, built by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1934-37. The dam has been updated in more recent years to provide better electrical service and kinder ways for the many types of fish to swim the ladders as they head on upstream.

Bonneville Dam Spillway

Lamprey “stuck to the window”
in the fish ladder

Fish ladder at Bonneville Dam 

 “HALT!” Roger “defending” the dam
as was done during WWII 

Larry, Tom and Roger inspecting the
old turbine wheel at Bonneville Dam

  

Factoid #4: This year a record of over 25,000 Sockeye salmon passed through the Bonneville fish ladder – in one day! (Again, attention all fishermen!!)

As clouds came in – though it was still a warm day – our last stop was at the Bonneville Hatchery where we “met up” with Herman the Sturgeon weighing in at 450 pounds! He’s a whopping 10 foot-long sturgeon – much larger than the 3-6 ft. sturgeons that may be legally caught and kept. And he’s over 70 years old! (How do they know this?)

Factoid #5: The sturgeon is a “prehistoric” fish that appeared millions of years ago in the Jurassic period.

Whew! What a day! Back "home", we agreed that we thoroughly enjoyed this busy, beautiful, eventful day!

Roger and Jonette Stones Rig #20,
at the Multnomah Falls

Day 37 - Travel Day from Pendleton, Oregon to Portland, Oregon

The first thing everyone learns is the wakeup thumps as he checks all our air pressure in our tires with his golf club.

Spence's wake-up call

Lil

Larry

Then there is all the domestic chores that are a must to keep things nice in the rigs.

Tom B.

Mario and Joe

John

Dick

A stop at the local service station is a must.

Then off we go to a new adventure

Tom Y.

We drove through miles of high desert and then the Columbia River came into view.

Soon there was the sight of Mount Hood. It is so tall and white we could see it for over 100 miles

It wasn’t long before we traveled from the desert with very little vegetation to the old growth forest.

 There is a lot of hydro electric dams. They all try to be eco friendly with fish ladders. As they are upgraded the fish can go through the turbines without harm.

We arrived at the RV park in Portland for a nights rest so we can start another great adventure tomorrow

but FIRST, the social

Joe and Donna Risley, Rig #19

Day 36 - Pendleton, Oregon

            Our day of touring in Pendleton OR, began cool and rainy but soon turned to sunshine.  We met at 9AM to carpool to historic downtown for a tour of the underground.  Chris Fergason, our guide, teaches middle school English so she was prepared to handle our crowd.

Our guide, Chris in the Shamrock Card Room

            Pendleton was founded in 1863 and has been home to indians, explorers, cowboys, settlers & immigrants.  The underground housed the Shamrock Card Room, Hop Sing’s Chinese laundry, the Empire Ice Cream Parlor and the Empire Meat Market.  There were living quarters for up to 80 Chinese workers in one room.  Tunnels led to a velvet wall Prohibition Card Room and a Duck Pin bowling alley.  Upstairs were Madam Stella Darby’s famous “Cozy Rooms”.  The last “working girls” left in 1953. 

Hop Sing's Laundry

Empire Meat Market

            

Duck Pin Alley bowling pins and balls

Ice Cream Parlor

"Cozy Room" on the third floor

            Next was a great lunch at “Crabbys” and then we drove to the famous Pendleton Mills.  Good shopping at the outlet store and a guided tour of the mill’s automated production machines.

Bob, Peggy, Tom and Janet
enjoying lunch

The "husband bench" outside the
Woolen Mill outlet store

Taking the tour at Pendleton Woolen Mills

             Back to the Wildhorse Casino RV park and a chance to try our luck.  All in all a super day!

Ava and Jimmy Ray, Rig # 18