Our Boat Trip Down and Up the Columbia River

I took this picture of our boat the day before our cruise,
 when the sun was shinning.

To learn about the Bridge of the Gods click here.

Entering the lock at Bonneville Dam.
  It's open and waiting for us.

Almost in.

In and secured.


It takes 12 minutes for the water to flow out of the lock.
Lower gates opening and the swing bridge is almost all the way back.


And away we go down river.

The water flowing from the lower concrete pipe is the lower end
 of the fish ladder on the Washington side. 
The sprinklers are to create camouflage for the fish.
Before the sprinklers were installed birds would hang around
and grab the fish as they came out the pipe.


Upper Multnomah Falls drops 542 feet down to the lower falls
which you can't see in this picture. 
To learn about the falls click here.

I'm adding two pictures of the falls that I took a few days before.

Here we are back in the lock, going up.  These are the upper gates.
When the lock is full of water the bottom of our boat will be
20 feet higher than the top of the solid part of the gate,
which won't move when the gates open.
We'll rise a total of 60 feet.




All most open.


If you look closely at the lower right corner of the blue roof on the left,
there's a red light.  We're waiting for the green light to exit the lock.

Ok, that wraps up our boat trip down and back up the Columbia River in Oregon.   After leaving that area we headed over towards theYakama Washington area spending several days without internet.  Now we're in the Port Angeles Washington area.  More about that in the next post.

Missie in our new front yard.

Bonneville Lock and Dam and Fish Ladder, Bonneville Oregon

Today is my birthday and Diane and I went to the Bonneville Dam and Fish ladder.  It was foggy in the morning but soon cleared up.  Some pictures were taken early and some later with clear skies.

Here's a Google map overview of the dam complex.

 

There are actually three dams, two are generating electricity 

and one is just holding back water.

You see the red Google flag?  That's Oregon's generating dam.

The Dam

Looking up stream from the Washington side of the Columbia River.  

Washington on the left Oregon on the right.

The dam on the Oregon side of the river.  

There are generators inside generating lots of electricity.

See, in the picture above, all the burned trees on the hills behind the dam?  This is the area of the Columbia River Gorge that burned in 2017.  Fire caused by teenage boys.  Read about that fire here.

The Lock

Looking down stream at the entrance to the lock.  

The roadway is on a 'swing bridge'.  

Which swings open for incoming boats and barges.

Taken through a window, sorry for the reflection.

The down river end of the lock.  Note water level in lock is up to match 

the water level on the uphill side of the dam.

Here's a short video about how locks work click here.

It's about the locks on the Mississippi River but they all work the same.

The Fish Ladder

This is an enlargement of the first map.

The fish ladder starts in the lower left area and is dark colored because of the water flowing through it.  Remember that all water on the left is down stream, meaning it's much lower than the water on the right of the dams.  The fish enter the ladder and work their way up to the middle of our picture, where the white water is.

The poor fish have a long way to go to get up and over the dam.

And up.  This is the white water area in the map.

See this top step?  Remember it as we'll come back here in a bit.

And up.

The fish are entering this area on the very far left, and swimming

their way through this maze.

If you look closely you can see this last bit of their ladder I call the maze.

They come through the white water area into a calm water pool, to catch their breath 

and through the maze and out into the water by the red band just above the word Google.

They are finally in the upper waters above the dam.

Ok, remember the top step in the whit water area?  We stood and took pictures of the fish as they were making their way over that step.  

A little tail splash.

More tail splash this time at the top.

They count the fish as they come up the ladder and past the counting window.

These are American shad.

We finished up our day at the Sturgeon fish hatchery.

Here is some information about sturgeon, from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife web site.

Sturgeons predate many fish species, appearing in the fossil record approximately 200 million years ago. There are 26 species of sturgeon and paddlefish in the Acipenseriformes group and many of these species are harvested as food. Living in a range of habitats, from subtropical to subarctic waters, sturgeons are found throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. They are bottom-feeders, eating small fish and invertebrates they find from sifting through silt or sand on the bottom of rivers and oceans. Some sturgeon species can grow to enormous sizes, reaching 12 feet in length.

Sturgeon and paddlefish are harvested for their meat and roe (fish eggs), which is then processed into caviar, a very expensive product for which there is a high demand.  Sturgeon roe now represents more than 90% of the commercial caviar market.

Click here to go to the web site for more info.

This was the small one and he came up to the window to see me.

Then I went outside to see him.  It's a bit hard to see him but let's give it a try.

Here he is swimming from left to right in the middle of the picture, he's grey.

Here he is coming straight to me and I almost missed him.

He was about 8 feet long.

From the sturgeon pond we headed over to the rainbow trout pond.  I know you're getting tired of fish pictures so I'll keep the trout pictures down to two.

Arn't they beautiful?

The hills are covered with wildflowers.

That's all for now.  Tomorrow is our boat trip up and down the river.  More about that later.

One last note, all pictures are taken with my iPhone 7+, with no editing.

I'm Back on the Road

I won't bore you with what I've been doing the last two months, just getting things done. I did spend time in northern California and saw many friends but sadly there just wasn't enough time to see everyone.  I'm sorry about that.

My friend, Diane, who has a truck and camper, is following me up to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington.  We're seeing friends along the way.  Spent a few days visiting s friend.  He and I spent the day hiking along the shore and on the beach. 

His beautiful red maple tree.

When it was time to leave he gave me a 

bouquet of flowers from his wonderful garden.

From his house in northern California we went up to Crescent City CA for 4 nights. 

Parking spot outside of Crescent City, Calif.  It's a horse ranch and rv park.  Kitties could run free.  Diane and I were in one spot.  Super big sites and you couldn't see anyone else around even though there were about 10 other campers.  The owner didn't want me to advertise his park saying he's as busy as he wants to be.

Bubba in the grass. 

 Diane's truck didn't make it into this pictures but she's to the right,

of that little tree, just behind the blooming wild rose.

Still many wildflowers blooming.

Rhododendron 

Wild iris

Crescent City beach at low tide.

Moving north along the coast we spent two nights in the Florence Oregon ELKS Lodge RV Park.

There's Diane's truck and camper.

Having lunch on the Siuslaw River in Florence Oregon.

From there we were able to track down Diane's brother, John, at the casino in Lincoln City, Oregon.  John lives in an rv and travels around just like me.  He has made it an art, staying in casino parking lots for free and playing the slots.  The night before we found him he won BIG.   He knows how all the machines work, and he's explained it to me several times but to say that I don't understand how it all works is an understatement.  He knows though.

I'm now in Tillamook Oregon where mom and I stayed in 2017 while having work done on the rv.  

Near the air museum.

It's beautiful here today and the kitties are running free.