Day 9: Columbia River Gorge to Portland – June 23

I woke the girls for a makeshift breakfast at our campsite and then we set out on a 5-mile roundtrip hike (10,000 steps before noon!) through the Gorge on the Eagle Creek Trail to Punchbowl Falls, with a small detour to see Metlako Falls.  The hike was unbelievably green; old-growth forests, dewy ferns, and moss-covered rocks feed into the description of the hike as “scenes from a fairy tale.”  And the views of the water below were stunning.   At times the trail in quite narrow with steep drop-offs, but Julia handled it like a pro. She is actually starting to credit and thank me for getting her here.   

Punchbowl Falls

Metlako Falls

After our hike, we drove along the Historic Columbia River Highway along the Gorge en route to Portland.  It is riddled with waterfalls which we viewed from the car, stopping only at Multnomah Falls.  Probably the crankiest I have been during this entire trip was trying to find a parking place for these falls; I didn’t react well when a car snuck into a space I had been waiting for.  But the girls pulled me back together and all was well after viewing the spectacular falls and, perhaps more importantly to my mood, getting lunch at the restaurant there.

We were eager to get the Portland part of our trip started so we skipped all additional waterfalls and mapped our course to our next stop: The Travelers’ House hostel in the northeast section of Portland (after a quick detour to a guitar store called Trade Up Music to get guitar polish and cleaner – and play several guitars).  The girls have been wanting to try hosteling and I was so excited to find this option in Portland.  Seemed the perfect way for us to hostel – we reserved a private triple room.  The shared space is lovely and we quickly made ourselves at home hanging out and getting to know other travelers and the staff, getting our bearings in the city.  Everyone is so friendly!  Traveler’s House is a cool, funky place with an emphasis on gratitude:  there is a gratitude tree out front and the email password is gratitude.   We feel thankful to be staying here!  In fact we liked it so much immediately that I asked about extending our time to include the weekend with Jim.  [Our current plan is to move to the Embassy Suites, which is free to us on points and we thought a more comfortable way for us all to be together given the short time.]  The Hostel is all booked for the coming weekend, but they have just recently built a yurt in the neighboring backyard which they offered to us for the weekend!  While it won’t have any of the creature comforts of the Embassy Suites it may be too tempting to pass up.  Rachel actually asked me at the start of the trip if we would be staying in a yurt on this trip and I sadly had to tell her no…but now it is a distinct possibility!

Our first order of business in Portland was to map out all the restaurants Rachel has been researching diligently.  I put her in charge of figuring out what we needed to try in this foodie city and she quietly went about it, much to my surprise creating a full grid of local restaurants!  It is a great resource for anyone visiting Portland, and even those living here.    For our first night, we had reservations at Ava Gene’s (thanks Tina!) – and all food was delicious!  We ate light to pace ourselves this week but also to keep space for Salt and Straw – which we are prepared to make a daily Portland treat - but, the line was so long out the door that we decided to give it a pass and get it at off times moving forward.