Mother's Day Adventure

I had a glorious Mother's Day with a family outing to the Columbia River Gorge. I wanted to go somewhere fun for the day that was a little out of the norm for us, and gave us an opportunity to enjoy the beautiful weather we finally had. I finally decided on a trip to see the beautiful waterfalls in the Gorge. We haven't really spent much time there as a family and it sounded like a good idea to get out and be one with nature. 

We took the scenic route which takes you by all the waterfalls and gives you the picturesque breathtaking views of the gorge. My absolutely favorite time to be there is fall when the leaves are turning colors, but spring is equally beautiful when the wildflowers are blooming and everything is such a bright shade of green.

The Crown Point Vista House is so incredibly old dating back to the early 1900s, and was recently refurbished back to it's original glory a couple of years ago. It has exquisite views, and they have all kids of fun historical facts about the building and scenic highway throughout the years.

Here is the view from the Vista House looking across the river to Washington. Bryan asked Gabi what separated Oregon and Washington and she said "a border". Nick pipes in with the Willamette River. Yes, I know. Geography still needs a little work. They both knew the correct answer, just took a couple of times to get it out of their mouths.

Here is the view looking east up the gorge. 

The first falls we hiked to was LaTourelle Falls. A beautiful location and one of the higher falls in the region.

The bottom of the falls. 

I actually got to be in a picture!

My favorite falls was Bridal Veil Falls. The upper portion falls into a pool, then drops again to the creek.  Very cool. We wanted to swim in the pool, but since the water is melted snow we decided that wasn't such a great idea.

Here is the creek & trail leading up to the falls. Just a beautiful spot.

Of course no trip to the gorge is complete without a trip to Multnomah Falls. Apparently half of Portland had the same idea because it was crazy crowded there. We didn't run into a lot of traffic or people anywhere else, but because you can access Multnomah Falls from the scenic byway & I-84 it gets more traffic I think. Plus it is the 2nd largest waterfall in the US, and one of the iconic landmarks in the Portland area. I was hungry by the time we reach the falls so wasn't up to the mile long hike to the top so we skipped that. 

Horsetail Falls

We were going to head into Cascade Locks or Hood River to eat and window shop, but there was a major traffic jam and I didn't feel like waiting in the long line of traffic for who knows how long so we headed back to Portland. Gotta love the road construction season in Oregon! We ended up eating an early dinner/late lunch at Famous Dave's BBQ since we worked up quite an appetite with the hiking we did. 

All in all it was a great Mother's Day doing exactly what I wanted to do while spending some great quality time together as a family. And we got home just in time before the rain started. At least our weather was perfect for our adventure!