Part one of I've been a bad, bad blogger.....

I don't think I've updated since we took Sarah up to Timberline Lodge. Now that was almost a week ago and we put her on a plane back home yesterday. I really have no excuse, other than the fact that we were having too much fun for me to find time to blog. So here we go,

THE REST OF SARAH'S VISIT, IN REVIEW:

Wednesday. Wednesday was our designated "Waterfall Extravaganza Day." After a fabulous day of snow play on Tuesday, we decided to head out to Multnomah Falls on Wednesday. So we picked up Banana from school and hit the road, heading West on 84 for about an hour to begin our day with lunch in Troutdale. Yes. Troutdale. Shut up, Sarah laughed too. I didn't name the towns people.

First we had lunch at McDonalds, where apparently, Kbear had some deep, life altering experience with the wall mural. We think it was speaking to her:


Sarah, being Sarah, enjoyed some pre-pressed chicken product goodness. She's going to hate that I posted this picture on my blog, but what are big sisters for?


And then we began our backtrack. Troutdale (stop laughing) is at mile marker 17. We headed down the Historic Highway, coming back East and made our first official stop at Vista House, known as the "Gateway to the Gorge." It's also known by our family as "THE MILLION DOLLAR BATHROOM" because that's pretty much all it really is. It's this really neat little building with awesome lookout platforms WAAAAAY up on the hill where you first come back into the Columbia River Gorge. So you can stop there and do two things. You can take pictures, and you can go potty. We did both. The weather was okay. It was overcast and kind of drizzly. In other words, it was fall in Oregon. We still got some nice shots though, and they are all on my picasa site.



Then we continued our eastward track towards the falls. Multnomah Falls is one of the highest waterfalls in North America, and it's one of my absolute favorite places in all of Oregon. It's actually the biggest of a group of seven waterfalls all along this one stretch of the old highway and it's absolutely breathtaking. We hit the first one coming in from the West, which is Latourell Falls and took some great pictures. Then we moved on to my favorite smaller fall, Wahkeena and took a .2 mile hike to the top. Awesome hike, except for the part where it started pouring. There is really something that feels counterproductive about looking at a waterfall in the rain. But I think Sarah enjoyed it anyway.



I've got to run the girls to school. TO BE CONTINUED.....