Siblings over a creek in the morning.

Tom headed for the edge of Clearwater Fall.

Day Four • Umpqua Falls • Portland
We shunned starting a fire in the morning, although it was even colder than on Monday. We gradually started packing and prayed that we would finish before a shower comes. Even so, our tent top remained wet, so we spread it in the car across the rest of our stuff and hoped that it would simply get dry again.

We drove out to the north, along waterfalls that feed the Umpqua River. Crater Lake and its vicinity is of volcanic nature and the water cycle here is enhanced by lava caves and alternating penetrable and impenetrable layers of ashes and volcanic minerals. Water seeps through a complicated underground maze, resurfacing after up to several months — perfectly filtered and with stable temperature. This may have originated the name Clearwater Fall, which was our first stop. Right under the fall, our children began to cross the stream on logs, still slippery from previous night's showers. We watched them with Sid from a viewing platform and wondered who would fall first in the icy water.

And the winner of the wet-foot water-crossing competition is — mom!

At one of the tallest falls of Oregon: Watson Fall..

Then we ran around the fall and found ourselves on the bank of the creek feeding it. A natural small lake fills a lush meadow, with logs of fallen trees leading across, and we remembered having walked on them a few years back. Thus I let them lure me and embarked on my path. Within a few minutes it became clear that Sid and I had guessed wrong — it was ME who fell in the water first (Tom followed perhaps because I moved the logs). Sid remained a gentleman and refrained from rolling on the ground and laughing. I did not feel like laughing either — the water felt warm (or rather the air was so cool that the icy water did not feel any colder), and felt that way through my layers of wooly underwear even after I got out. However, I had an urgent feeling as if somebody had severed my foot at my ankle. A closer inspection revealed a ripped sock and a bruise on my ankle (perhaps from a stump on the log?) — and a fact that I COULD walk. Tom simply had one wet foot, and he easily solved it by changing. I could not continue on with my shoes — I could not put them back on the bruise, so I had to spend the rest of the day wearing flip-flops. This included our subsequent walk up to Watson Fall — in about forty degrees (F), mud and drizzle. Well, next time I should know not to show off.

We had reached Portland, Oregon, in the evening, rushed into a Best Western near a freeway, booked a room, let them refer us to the nearest (Asian) restaurant and walked to have dinner at the (Vietnamese) Da Lat. The owner had moved here from San Francisco — it quite pleases us to see how eateries of our favorite noodle soup and similar goodies keep spreading around the States. A thorough bath for all of us was on order after dinner — one could wash smoke-infused hair, but a great deal of clothing remained in somewhat anti-social state. We were hoping that once we'd turn away from the coast, we would change into t-shirts and shorts, and our smelly jeans and jackets could remain in the car.

A view to the Columbia River Gorge: from Oregon to the other, Washington state side.

Much more than a pretty view, the kids were interested in this little squirrel.

Pony Soldier had been perhaps the best hotel on this trip. My opinion may be distorted by the two previous days spent in cold and discomfort, but I still think that a great deal comes from the friendliness of the staff. Beginning with the receptionists, who did not bat an eye and produced old towels for drying mine and Tom's shoes, called us when Lisa got lost on our way from breakfast — to the attendant at the breakfast bar, who gave us useful advice and assistance, and kept re-stocking popular bowls.

Day Five • Portland • Bonneville Dam • Spokane
Here, in Portland, Oregon, we also made the last attempt to arrange a horse back ride on a ranch in central Washington — we did not succeed; the owner could not be reached, and thus we decided to skip it and try to drive all the way to Spokane, Washington, on that day. Naturally, we had planned some stops. The first one was on a place with a strange name Portland Women's Forum. The women of Portland had, indeed, chosen a beautiful spot; the view of the majestic Columbia River is truly amazing, but I would have expected some FEMALE empathy from them, in the form of restrooms.

From the Forum we continued along a sightseeing route, visited another viewpoint over the River, and watched a few famous waterfalls. As we approached the more renowned ones (e.g. Multnomah) and the freeway, tourist and vehicle density increased geometrically, and we simply drove by the few last overflowing parking lots. After all, some of us had communed with the waterfalls quite intimately on the previous day.

As soon as the tourists had left, one could collect a pretty picture of the Bonneville Dam generator room.

This is a water ladder for fish.

Our next stop was Sternwheel marina — they advertised historic paddle boat rides operating daily, and we were hoping to fit on one of them. A lady at the register acted rather surprised — why, there are no short rides on Wednesdays, for the boat is out on a long cruise with dinner. We gaped, disbelieving, so she eventually pointed to a small print notice in their brochure, running May through October, Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays through Sundays. If you get a feeling that nothing worked on this vacation, you're not alone. And I did not even mention our earlier plan to camp somewhere near Mt. Hood, Oregon — which we had given up thanks to weather and also the fact that there were wildfires around Hood River.

We got back in our car, resolved to simply continue on our way and find something else. I was returning from the marina automatically retracing my arrival path without consulting a map, which was a mistake, for the hamlet of Cascade Locks does not have an eastbound freeway on-ramp in that direction, and we were forced by a one-way to proceed west. We resigned to take the next exit and turn around then. Those few minutes it took to get there were enough for us to recall that this exit let to the Bonneville Dam, which had earlier been announced by a VISITOR CENTER sign.

Soon we were queued at a turning bridge over a lock, waiting to get to a small island with tourist attractions. The brige turned, and with it the whole trip — from this point on, everything fit together and worked. I did not expect that a visit to a power plant can be interesting so much that we would spend three hours there. We had arrived exactly at a moment when a guided tour of the power plant interior began (there are only two tours a day) — and we briskly joined. In fact, although generators make an incredible racket, it surprised me how clean and tidy such a facility can be.

A closer look would reveal the ladder to be under heavy traffic.

Such windows let you see into the depths of the ladder.

The greatest hit was, after all, the water ladder. Columbia River is an important highway for salmon and other migrating fish. A dam with a power plant would, obviously, interrupt the whole system. Small salmons wash though the turbine with relative ease (four percent loss is due to decompression, not mechanical damage), but what with the adult fish, moving upstream? These get to peruse a water ladder — individual steps sport openings; majority of the fish instinctively seek a path against the stream and find the way. The rest of them simply jump. And since it was currently their season, there were incredible numbers of the jumping ones. We had never seen a salmon run, and so we had spent a long time, watching, fascinated, from a bridge into the artificial rapids. When were finally had had enough, we moved to the basement of the four-story visitor center — it's underground, i.e. under water — and offers windows into the depts of the ladder, where you can watch fish that don't bother to jump.

We disentangled ourselves from the dam in the late afternoon — and that was only because we still had three hundred (314 to be exact) miles to Spokane, Washington; not because we would grow tired of the attractions and information offered at this visitor center. It's not necessary to explain that we had arrived in Spokane late and tired. We had hard time finding a hotel; eventually booked at Red Lion (with Lisa ecstatic as we got a room on tenth floor — this represents a never-before level for our kids), and let them recommend Thai Bamboo restaurant. Well, they were still open at nine o'clock, and did not ask us to leave. The waitress was friendly and a ceiling with a starry sky that turned colors from pink through blue to green, had kept Lisa at an elated state of mind. Sadly, the best one can say about their allegedly Thai food was that it was warm. Flavors suggested a Mexican chef guessing how one may cook in China. It was greasy and hot.

A wolf on its house.

Day Six • Wolf People • Kalispell
A morning confronted us with a question, what to do next? There was a journey to Kalispell, Montana, ahead of us, but how to make it interesting? A thing called Skyride was being advertised throughout Spokane, and we naively imagined it like a funicular up to some hill with a view. In reality it leads across a river in downtown, with a view worse than the one we had from our room on the 10th floor. I found a brochure at the hotel pointing to Wolf People, practically on our planned route, since to get to Montana, one must cross northwest Idaho. We reserved a guided tour to a wolf pack at two o'clock; taking advantage of the fact that our room had a noon check-out, we chased the kids out to a pool. The hotel had an indoor and an outdoor one, with a slide, and the kids were happy. Hippo even witnessed a life guard jumping into action and rescuing a boy under the slide, after he gulped some water and panicked.

The pack leader likes a rub — that is, from "his" human, while tourists stay behind double fence.

We found ourselves anxiously dithering at Wolf People's before two o'clock. The actual visit is hard to describe — wolves have a reputations of evil animals; since childhood we are all conditioned by the story of the bad wolf eating granny and the Red Riding Hood, are we not? In reality a wolf has completely different interests than laying in wait behind a bush until there's a Red Riding Hood walking by. In places where people accomplished regulating wolf population down to zero, so that e.g. peaceful herds of elk and deer could graze undisturbed, herbivores had often transformed their surroundings into desert. Hence — everything to a point. A wolf will never become a pet. Although it looks like a dog, it lacks several millenia of domestication, and remains a predator.

A wolf pup.

The most interesting moment came when our guide began to howl — the wolf Mohawk is the local showman and sometimes gets convinced to show off — and when one wolf starts howling, others join. I had heard coyotes howling before, but I haven't heard wolves until now. They also had wolf puppies at the compound — still at an age when they can be held and petted, just like any other puppy, and thus we enjoyed a cute side of the wolves. Although it was already obvious that the wolf pups were a bit more destructive than their domesticated cousins.

We did not chance a walk-in at a hotel in Kalispell, Montana, which is a tourist center, and had reserved ahead of time. Naturally, it was expensive, located five miles out of town, and it took us a while to find. While looking, we spotted a Japanese restaurant on the main street, and went for a dinner. Montana runs one hour ahead of California (and Oregon, Washington, and northern Idaho), so it was highest time. This restaurant froze our attempts to eat Asian food in inland places. Again, it was miles removed from authentic Japanese dinner. We decided that if we desired to eat well from that point on, we would have to order local cuisine.

Whole family on a horse back ride at Artemis Acres in Montana.

Kids on horses in Montana.

Day Seven • Artemis Acres • Arial Adventures • Tamarack Brewery
Naturally, we had some trouble getting up in the morning. Breakfast was being offered till nine o'clock and we were used to Pacific time zone, and a pleasant local eight o'clock meant for us getting up like when going to school. But we managed. After breakfast we also managed to call Artemis Acres, who — accoring to another hotel brochure — offered horse back rides. It turned into an impromptu rush, for we reserved a ride at ten (i.e. in only fifty minutes); we only had time to change into (smokey) jeans and drive in a hurry. I was issued a five year gelding Jack, although his name does not convey his impressive half-mastodon stature. Yet his demeanor matched that of a cute little horsey, and the name fits. I was mostly impressed (besides the size of the horses) by the absolute discipline in the little herd — our guides let them rest during our break without tying them up, and not one animal would head for the lush green grass. Of course, the horses tried to grab a bite every so often during our ride, they were, after all, normal horses, but I was amazed nevertheless.

There's a funny story with the size of the horses. Our front guide had dropped her walkie-talkie on a narrow trail; she called back asking the girl closing our column to pick it up. Tom did not hesitate, slid down from his horse and picked up the radio, surprising everybody. And then he, of course, could not scramble back up on his giant horse, and needed a help from the professionals anyway. The whole ride was awfully pleasant and easy. Montana had had its rainy week and this was the first day when mud had dried sufficiently and one could do something meaningful. Spring was in full swing, an incredible quantity of blossoms everywhere, and small cute clouds swam in the blue skies, framed by gorgeous snow-capped Rocky Mountains on the horizon.

Children on wires of the attraction called Aerial Adventure.

Finally both on an intersection of high routes.

Thus we had spent the first half of the day on horses; as we were pondering what to do with the other half, the ranch girls suggested a trip to Whitefish and zip lines. They should not have said that in front of the children — there is some zip line setup at Kirkwood and we sometimes see people hanging there — and the kids always wanted to try it. Now they shook like in fever, and we had to go to Whitefish. Why not? We were a bit wary of a large resort and a possible tourist trap. Soon we discovered that zip lines were out of question — even if we ignore the insane sixty dollars per person, Lisa did not qualify for minimum weight, and Hippo for the maximum. However, a friendly attendant had recommended Aerial Adventures, and when we promised the kids that it included some zip lines, they assented. Hippo did not qualify again with his mass, and I refused on account of having a sprained, blue ankle unsuitable for climbing on ropes. In the end we even got a discount as the ticket was valid for two hours and it was already four fifteen, i.e. we only had 105 minutes till closing time.

I must say that I was first a bit worried how the kids would safely manage their safety harness — but it was unnecessary; the system is quite idiot-proof: the children had two carbines with an interconnected lock, so until they lock one of them on a rope, they cannot unhook the other one to the next section. I also thought they would be done after thirty minutes, and I was quite wrong in that aspect. We lasted our limit; actually a quarter hour over (one has to finish the route, for you cannot leave it without a ladder). Fortunately, the attendants did not mind — two merry young men (perhaps even boys?) eventually climbed along with our kids and discussed all possible topics with us on the ground. The center had just opened for the summer season and so everybody was fresh and eager. They also gave us an important endorsement of Tamarack Brewery, saying it produces better beer than in Kalispell or Whitefish.

We have no comparison, but we definitely liked Tamarack — both beer and food was great (even a dessert — a cobbler with ice cream) and overall it was a very successful day. Maybe because we had given up planning and let ourselves get carried on by the flow of events, and most importantly — by pointers from local experts.

Remaining pictures can be found in the gallery.