We arrived at our hotel around dinner and decided that it would be fun to drive out to Multnomah that evening. Alex would be leaving us for Southern California early the next morning, so we wanted to enjoy some of the area with her before then. The last 15 minutes of the drive to Multnomah Falls was more beautiful than the drive down to the Golden Gardens. Does that tell you how much we loved it? So serene and the smell of forest was intoxicating. As it was dusk when we arrived, my photos don’t do the experience justice.
Most of us are smiling. LOL
This reminded me of the Chronicles of Narnia….love the moss coating the trees, stones, lamppost….so beautiful.
The Multnomah Falls Lodge was just as lovely as the falls….I probably took around 50 photos of it, for future reference. 😉
As we were driving out, both Aaron and I commented on how the homes looked like they were right on the water…..they were. The garages were for the boats, not cars. I wish I would have had more time to actually stop and get some decent pictures. Aaron was a sweetheart and pulled over as quickly as he could, but there wasn’t a lot of shoulder along this road and it was growing dark fast, so my pics aren’t what I wanted, but you get the point.
The next morning, we headed out to the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site. It was the kids’ second time working on a Junior Ranger badge and it was a lot more work than the first one, but the rangers were amazing at Fort Vancouver. Seriously, we needed to pull out cash to purchase our America the Beautiful pass (they don’t take cards there and we didn’t bring our check book on the trip), and one of the rangers called the nearest credit union to ask them if they would accept our credit union withdrawal, then drew a map for Aaron. He also gave us a great history on the fort and the Hudson Bay Trading Company.
I told Aaron that he needs to make me some spoons that look like this some day.
They didn’t have any pencils, but when I brought in our pencils from the van, our ranger sharpened them for us. Great service!
Posers!
While waiting to begin a tour of the buildings, within the fort, I smelled these roses. Mmmmmmm, the best I have ever smelled. I changed my mind on roses, they are awesome. I need some of these roses in our yard!
The blacksmiths that were reenacting for us were a treat! They were working on some metal and showed us how the traps worked.
Simon, in his top hat.
The furrier was equally impressive. We were able to touch every kind of pelt they had there. The beaver fur was used to line the top hats, back in the day.
Working on our Junior Ranger books.
It was fun watching the boys all work together to reassemble this little house. Good work, men!
I love carpentry, especially the old-fashioned type.
Silly boys, coats are for clerks.
The kids all completed their Junior Ranger requirements and were sworn in by our new friend. Luken was the most thrilled about it, as you can see from the photo…..such a stinker!
We were really hungry, so we headed in to downtown Portland, to see what the rage about the food carts was all about.
A little Mexican, Greek, Vietnamese, Thai, and Chicago food….perfect lunch for this foodie family. It was a treat to be able to try them all….we probably looked a little silly to some, but we thoroughly enjoyed our lunch! 🙂
We didn’t have a lot of time before our appointment to visit the Portland temple, but since we were only a few blocks from Powell’s City of Books, we decided to jog over and see it. The 20 minutes we spent there could have been 20 days and we still wouldn’t have seen everything. So amazing! Definitely going to spend more time there, on our next visit to Portland. We love books!
But this was one of my most favorite images from our Portland adventure. Portland is a very straight-forward, down-to-earth place. As we were running back to our car, I passed this guy. I stopped, told him he was beautiful and asked if I could get his photo.
And they weren’t lying, when they said there are a lot of bridges in Portland. I think I will focus on taking photos of bridges on our next trip into Portland.
The Portland Temple was the first one we have visited on this trip that had a visitor’s center and it was an A W E S O M E visitor’s center. I waited for over an hour for the boys and Aaron to get done with their baptisms (usually it takes them 20 minutes, so it was unexpected) and was so grateful for all of the activities they had for kids (and investigators).
Coloring temples, using an I-pad to watch I am a Mormon ads. And there were a lot of videos to watch.
The grounds were stunning, as well…right in the middle of all of these gorgeous trees. In fact, there were so many trees, we couldn’t get a good shot of the temple with the sign.
Finally, the boys were out and I was able to go in and do initiatories. One of the security guards walked down and asked if he could take our picture. So nice.
This was our fourth temple so far and all have been such a treat to visit. Looking forward to finishing up our Portland adventure today and heading out to the Oregon coast!
Pura Vida!
