Peace On The Road
Volcanoes And Seashores
July 20, 2013
I have always thought
that the Mississippi river was something really special. I have seen
it when it was low and I have seen it when it was flooded. It is a
very large river and it truly is impressive. But in certain respects
the Columbia River has impressed me as much or more. I have been
amazed driving along on the highway through the Columbia River Gorge.
The river is so wide and its length just seems to go on as far as
the eye can see. The geologist say that it was started as much as 17
million years ago with the major erosion occurring because of massive
floods back during the last ice age. While the canyon was cut
steeply downwards the surrounding area was left high with many
streams forming waterfalls that are as high as Multinomah Falls at
620 foot tall in two stages. There are 77 falls along the Oregon
side of the river through the canyon. There was no way to get a full
view of any falls that we saw. They were all beautiful. Every falls
that we saw was also crowded with people.
MULTINOMAH FALLS IN THE
COLUMBIA RIVER GORGE SCENIC HIGHWAY
All my life I have been
around something that was the result of volcanoes and most of the
time did not know it. My parents raised me on a Kansas farm that had
a fertile soil, loess, that had come from volcanoes. In Colorado I
worked in the shadows of mountains formed by lava flows. During this
summers travels we have seen many volcano formed mountains and huge
fields of lava that flowed for miles in seemingly all directions.
One of the most classically volcano shaped mountains that we have
ever seen is Mt Hood near Portland Oregon. We drove three quarters
of the way around it and it was impressive from every view that we
had. It is understandable that there are some people that call it
the Mt. Fuji of the United States. To my way of thinking it is a
perfectly shaped volcanic cone. We also drove out of Portland into
Washington to see Mt. St. Helens. It was shaped much the same way
before it blew its top in 1980. Most of the time we were in a place
to view it was shrouded by clouds so the photographs were good they
were not great. St. Helens and its destruction area is very
impressive.
A VIEW OF 11,245 FOOT TALL
MT. HOOD IN OREGON IT IS A CLASSIC STRATOVOLCANO
The vegetation in Oregon
has been amazing to us. Berry bushes thrive in a way that is
unbelievable. The medians in many places are lush with berry bushes,
and along the roadside the banks are also covered with the bushes. A
close look reveals that the bushes are as thick with small green
berries as it is possible for them to get. Along the roads and open
fields there are so many more bushes that it is nearly impossible to
believe. There are places that the roadside is covered for a quarter
mile. In a few weeks when the berries are ripe there will truckloads
that will only be harvested by nature itself.
In Portland is the
International Rose Test Garden. It is an beautiful place with over
7,000 rose plants of more than 550 varieties. In 1905 largely as a
result of the Lewis and Clark Exposition, Portland had twenty miles
of rose bordered streets. The local nurserymen conceived of an
international test garden. When WWI started there was fear that some
of the unique varieties of roses in Europe would be destroyed as a
result of the war. Many foreign growers sent their hybrids and the
garden became an instant success. Today its primary purpose is to be
a testing area for new varieties of hybrid roses. It is a wonderful
place to spend a few hours and “Smell the Roses”, or enjoy the
specialty gardens.
In various places during
our travels we have seen a lot of houseboats on the various rivers
and lakes. It seems that most of them would be better termed shanty
boats. If you were to knock on the door a woman should answer
the door and say, “Howdy! Come on in and set a spell. My name is
Shanty Boat Annie. This is my husband Swamp Water Bob.” Up on
Lake Erie a few years ago we saw quite a few house boats. As I
remember they were pretty simple, single story house boats with
little or no upgrades. Also there were only a few, a couple dozen
perhaps. That was NOT the way it was in Portland on the Columbia
river. In one area there were between three and four hundred house
boats. A few were three stories tall and most were two story. There
were sun decks, sun rooms, green houses, patios, balconies, and many
other amenities. I am not sure if I would like the closeness between
the houses. Sometimes it was only a single step to the neighbors
house. Of course living in a motor home I am often just a dozen or
so feet from another camper, so who am I to form such an opinion. I
guess that is a throwback to being raised on a farm where the nearest
neighbor was a half mile away.
JUST A FEW OF THE HUNDREDS
OF HOUSE BOATS ON THE COLUMBIA RIVER
In our travels here in
Oregon we have been very blessed to see the things that we have. In
addition to all the volcanic mountains, the magnificent rivers, the
seascapes that are beautiful, we have seen some of the lushest
forests of any of our tours of the USA. The ferns and the flowers
that grow along the road are not to be equaled in many places. The
ferns especially are huge and prolific. There are several
lighthouses that we have visited. The views from these lighthouse
are wonderful. At two different places that we stopped there were
pods of gray whales that were just a short distance off shore. We
would watch till we saw a spout that would look like a small bit of
fog or steam above the water, and then the back of a whale would
appear above the surface of the water for a few seconds. A second or
even a third would appear a short distance away, but not ever at the
same time. There was enough distance between them that it was
obvious there was more than one whale. On the rocks off shore near
the water level there were many seals that were basking in the sun.
It is possible that some of them were sea lions but at the distance
we could not see them well enough to determine whether they were
seals or sea lions, likely some of both. On many of these same rocks
way above the sea level there were more sea birds than anybody could
shake a stick at. In fact too many to shake a bush at. I think a
lot of them were seagull, cormorants and pigeon guillemots. There
are supposed to be puffins along the shore and maybe we saw some of
those but we were never close enough to be sure.
Till later this is Doug
of
Peace On The Road
