Bonneville Hatchery and Dam...and Llamas

One of my favorite local sites that we visited in Oregon was the Bonneville Hatchery and Dam. How interesting can it be to look at a bunch of fish?

Very.

The Bonneville Hatchery and Dam is located just an hour from Portland. As I mentioned in my last post, it's a great addition if you're visiting Multnomah Falls. Do both and make a day out of it.

As with Multnomah Falls and Mount Hood, we visited Bonneville multiple times during the summer of "Our Year of Living in Portland." The falls are majestic and Mount Hood is stunning, but Bonneville is just a bit quirky. I love quirky.

This "Historic Area" has cute cottages that remind me of Alice in Wonderland.

One of the best parts is the Sturgeon Viewing and Interpretive Center, where they have an enormous fish named Herman: Herman the Sturgeon. He's massive! There is an underwater viewing area for visitors.

The hatchery has dozens of breeding ponds for trout.

But the Salmon runs are the most impressive. The giant fish jump over locks, jumping several feet in the air, as they desperately try to swim upstream to spawn. They were really active in mid-August. The cute pug in the picture is Jewels. She belongs to our friends, Dave and Cath. They all visited us for the eclipse.

Here we are with Dan's mom, standing in front of a fish ladder. The fish climb up the ladder. I could watch fish climbing the ladder all day. It's mesmerizing. This isn't as weird as you think, I used to do animal observations at The Greater Los Angeles Zoo. The Bonneville Hatchery has employees who count fish to understand the current status of the fish population. They want to keep the salmon thriving.

We went on a free behind the scenes guided tour of the Dam. This is a great bonus for visitors. The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers build the dam at the during the early 1900's and it was renovated in the 1950's.

It is here, that I learned about the most horrifying creature on the planet. Truly, this is stuff straight out of a horror film.

I'm talking about Lamphrey.

Lamphrey attach themselves to fish ( or in this case windows) and slowly eat them. They basically have a mouth that sucks on and these sharp, vampire like teeth. Additionally, they look a bit like eels and one of the few creatures that freak me out are eels. I think it's because they hide in crevices and dart out. I remember going snorkeling in Maui and being freaked out over the eels, sharks were no bother.

Lamphrey are infinitely worse than eels. And now I will definitely never go swimming in the Columbia River!

And the river...

The Dam spans both Oregon and Washington. It's easy to cross over and there are exhibits on both sides. Plan to spend a few hours at the Bonneville Hatchery and Dam.

I'm sneaking this in here, but when we took Dan's mom to these sites our day was epic. After the dam, we drove to the Hood River County Fruit Loop. This is a ride through the lush countryside, where there are many farms and opportunities to purchase local goods.

Cows hanging out by the side of the road. They say California cows are the happiest, but I think an Oregon cow enjoying the summer sun, takes the win. These cows earned the weather.

Dan's mom loves to knit and we found an llama farm with a store selling llama wool. Dan and I visited with the animals, while Jan picked out pretty yarn for her next project.

There are so many great places to visit in Oregon, make sure that the Bonneville Hatchery and Dam are on your list. Also, make time to enjoy a drive through the Fruit Loop.

Multnomah Falls

Much like Mount Hood, Dan and I visited Multnomah Falls multiple times during our year of living in Portland. However, we only visited it together one time: when Dan's mom was visiting from England. The other times, we took trips to the falls with friends and family, but not together.

All of our visits occurred during the last two months that we lived in Portland: during summer. The primary reason is the PNW is miserable during most of the year. I found the weather to be worse than I has anticipated and I didn't want to leave the house, unless it was to drive to an indoor activity. This California girl was grumpy!

After hearing about Multnomah Falls for nearly a year ( everyone told us that it was a must-do), we finally saw it in person. It's spectacular. It's also just off the road, which means you don't have to engage in any hard-core physical activity to view it and it's free to park! This is a VERY popular spot, so the parking lot can get full and it is very crowded. Like anything, arrive early and be patient.

And the main event!

See the bridge? We climbed up to it for a closer view of the falls. It's not a hard climb. Actually "climb" is over-stating it. It's an easy walk, paved, up a not-too-steep hill and it takes about ten minutes. Most people can easily make the walk to bridge. If you're interested in hiking, some of the trails start near the bridge.

Here we are with Dan's mom on the bridge.

Multnomah Falls has a lodge, which is a historic landmark built during The Great Depression. Many of the hiking trails were damaged in a 2017 wildfire that was started by a teenager throwing fireworks. The fire happened just a few months after our visit. The lodge was nearly burned, but survived. Just a few weeks ago, the teenager was sentenced to a thirty-six million dollar restitution.

A model of the lodge.

We ate our lunch in the lodge restaurant, which offers an amazing brunch buffet. The local produce and fresh salmon were delicious. The entire experience was uniquely PNW and worth doing.

If you visit Oregon, you must visit Multnomah Falls. It's just a short drive from Portland and I recommend pairing it with a visit to the Bonneville Dam, which I will be blogging about next.

Portland Japanese Garden

Last summer, I visited the Portland Japanese Garden with my mother-in-law, Jan, who was visiting from England. I heard that it was a popular place, so we set off early in the morning, intending on arriving as soon as it opened at 10am.

The Portland Japanese Garden is located in Washington Park, a massive area just outside of the city, that includes the Portland Zoo, the International Rose Test Garden, and many museums. It's well-worth multiple visits. We took the MAX train and then had to take a free internal bus that loops around Washington Park. The bus ride took about fifteen minutes and we had a nice conversation with a young woman from a group of Mormon missionaries who were taking in the local attractions on their day off.

We were not the only people who had decided to try to beat the crowds by arriving early. The line snaked around stanchions and the queue was about a hundred people deep. The summer time admission was 16.95 for adults, but Jan got a senior break at 14.50.

After buying our tickets, we had to walk up multiple sets of stairs, though a forest setting to reach the main level of the garden.

Our first stop was the tea room. The tea room is extremely popular and does not take reservations. They do take a list on the same day, first come/first served. We put our name down and we were told to return in two hours.

The Portland Japanese Garden is a magical place, filled with shady nooks, waterfalls, and art. It's beautiful. We took a leisurely walk, ducking into air-conditioned buildings to see Japanese art, including an exhibit on costumes used in Kabuki.

The garden was serene with hillside paths and surprises around every corner.

Koi!

The rock garden.

The garden is not big and two hours was ample time to enjoy it. Although, I can easily imagine getting an annual pass, returning to sit and read in the garden. We saw many people with sketch pads.

We ended our day at the tea house. I had a recent phone conversation with Jan, regarding my upcoming trip to visit her in England. We spoke about all of the things that I wanted to see and made big plans. She said, "I know you're going to want to take pictures of everything, especially the food." Yep. If it's memorable, I'm going to document it.

First, here is the menu for the tea house. We were told that all of the tea is imported from Japan and that it is very special, not something that we would easily find elsewhere, outside of Japan. The tea room had an exclusive deal with a distributor.

Everything looked good and we were hungry. We settled on the "Sencha with Castella" set for two and added two Chikara Cakes.

The Chikara cake is similar to a fruit cake, thick and dense, with nuts and dried fruit. It was yummy and filling, something you'd want to pack for a hike. The Sencha tea was refreshing and it came with a Japanese sponge cake that tasted sweet, like it might have been sweetened with honey. It reminded me of a similar cake that my mom used to buy from a local Cuban bakery in Glendale.

The Tea Room is a must-do. However, you must arrive early and get your name on the list immediately. It's not a large cafe and the experience is leisurely, so the spots fill up fast.

Finally, here is a picture of downtown Portland taken from the garden. I love the mash-up of city and nature.