Day 47 - Portland here we come

We woke up in Silver Falls after a great night of sleep with cool air.  Nobody woke up in the middle of the night so we assume the stars just disappeared for a night.  Ha!




After breakfast, we all jumped into Rover and drove over to the Winter Falls trail head.  With a few miles of hiking we were able to see six different waterfalls, though some were more impressive than the others.  Again some of the paths offered the chance to get in behind the waterfall which really is a cool opportunity.  There were also a couple of really neat caves that could be explored near the waterfalls.  It’s amazing that water caused all these features in one way or another.









Having seen 9 of the 10 waterfalls, we drove over to the overlook to see the North Falls and say that we say all 10 of the falls in the park.  This may be cheating, but alas it was all we had time for.


After the exploration, we headed back to camp and started north to Portland.  It was supposed to be a short drive, but as we headed north on I-5 we ran into traffic.  Traffic at 2 PM on a Wednesday?  Come on Portland!  


We dropped Dover off at the hotel and then headed down to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI).  It had been recommended to us and again because of our ASTC membership, it was free (did we mention that we would STRONGLY recommend a museum membership to ASTC and AZA?  We found it to be good, but not great (though we did start to run short on time and didn’t see all of the exhibits so we reserve some of our judgement.  Some of the highlights were

  • A big exhibit on orcas

  • A fun chemistry lab where Robinson got to put different salt solutions into a Bunsen Burner and turn colors.  Also a rocket explosion from hydrolyzed water

  • A lot of tricky puzzles to solve

  • Another working marble machine

  • A planetarium show about black holes








We had gotten the recommendation from a number of people to avoid downtown Portland (sad) so we heeded that advice and instead spent our evening doing laundry and getting some excellent Mexican. Robinson and I each got nachos.  Sebastian got a quesadilla and Amy ordered had veggie enchiladas with a delicious green sauce.  




After dinner I dropped the boys and Amy off at the hotel and met up with a friend of mine from many years back, Garrett.  It was so great to catch up with him and hear about everything he’s been up to - we really need to not let so many years go by before our next get together.  Hopefully he’ll visit us when they visit the Southeast!  Since I forgot to get a picture with Garrett, I’ll just insert one of my favorites from years gone by.  




I got back to the hotel just in time to hear about how great the pool was and then we all called it an evening.

 


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