Along the Columbia River

Our next stop was Elochoman Slough Marina, which is in Cathlament, Washington, on the Columbia River.

RV sites are in a parking lot area like Winchester Bay, where we stayed recently, but smaller. There are some sites right on the river but are a little short for us but we have an end site, with water and electric and a great view of the river anyway.

Can you see our motorhome in the picture below. We are the one of the three rv's and the one on the far right.

 

 

 

The weather was on the cool side but had some great sunsets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We drove into Long Beach Friday to see if there were any campgrounds we might to stay next but really didn't see anything we liked. We may go farther up the coast. We stopped to take a picture or two in the area including one of the Astoria Bridge.

Almost 2,000 ships and about 700 lives have been claimed by the treacherous waters off the Peninsula over the past 300 years. Ships often had trouble traversing the Columbia River bar, the area in which the gigantic flow of the river rushes headlong into towering ocean waves.

 

 

 

Sunday we went back west to Astoria, this time, crossing into Oregon, into the city itself.

per Wiki

The Astoria–Megler Bridge is a steel cantilever through truss bridge that spans the Columbia River between Astoria, Oregon and Point Ellice near Megler, Washington, in the United States. Located 14 miles (23 km) from the mouth of the river, the bridge is 4.1 miles (6.6 km) long[3] and was the last completed segment of U.S. Route 101 between Olympia, Washington, and Los Angeles, California.[4] It is the longest continuous truss bridge in North America.

We headed to Astoria's Sunday Market, which is in the heart of the historic downtown area. It spans 4 blocks and is the second largest farmer's market in Oregon. It is also near the waterfront. Astoria is a very cool looking town right on the Columbia River, where it meets the ocean. Many of the houses sit on top of hills that overlook the town and the river.

 

 

We enjoyed walking around the market, where I got a lot of good produce. We ran into Nick and Terry Russell. We follow their blog, and went to one of their rallies a few years ago. They are full time rv's and travel around the country, publishing the Gypsy Journey that has articles on places they have been. Nick published his own newspaper in the past and is a very good writer. In the last few years, he has been writing a series of mystery books that take place in a small town in Arizona. We both love his Big Lake series and are looking forward to his next book. Besides produce, meats, and other food products, arts and crafts, they have music and a food court at the market. I had some halibut tacos. They were good but not as good as the ones I had in Bandon.

 

 

Back on the bridge which goes down from the Astoria side before straighting out. Interesting bridge.

 

Picture belows shows only a small portion of the many fishing boats out in the water. It is Salmon fishing time!!!

 

We had gone to a number of covered bridges in Cottage Grove, OR last year. Here is one we stopped at in Washington.

 

 

In case you were wondering why some bridges are covered, the bridges that are covered are wooden and the covers were to keep the wood from rotting out in moist climates, such as Oregon and Washington. There are also a lot of covered wooden bridges in the northeast of the country.

Our days here have reminded me of our California June gloom, where it is foggy or cloudy and the sun comes out around 5 or 6 in the evening. Of course, Monday morning, the day we are leaving to head north, is sunny. C'est la Vie. :) We are headed to Lake Quinault, a beautiful campground on the lake, where we stayed on a vacation a number of years ago. It is only about 3 hours up the road.

Stay tuned.

 

 

 

 

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Water Falls and Hiking in Silver Falls State Park

Silver Falls is the largest state park in Oregon and I think one of the busiest. As I mentioned before,, I was able to get one of the few sites available. We are in one of the only sites right out in the open as most sites are tucked away in the trees.

 

 

We have been here a few times and love it. This is the first time in the summer busy season and it is certainly that. We have seen more families with lots of children than anywhere else we have been. However, it is not particularly noisy. Silver Falls is a beautiful state park with 10 waterfalls, a temperate rain forest of Douglas firs and western hemlocks, creeks, including a swimming beach area, meadows. There are more than 22 miles of hiking and a 4 mile bike trail and even an off leash pet area. WOW, no wonder it is so busy, besides being about 30 miles from Salem and about an hour's drive from Portland. We took hikes on all 3 full days we were here. We started off taking a hike on a trail right near our campsite.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Streams and moss on the trees and plants and flowers everywhere. This trail wasn't the one I thought it was and so after walking for awhile we turned around and headed back. It turned out it was the nature trail and if we kept going it looped around. Anyway, we went back to the MH and got the map. Actually we had a few maps and they didn't seem to list the same trails, but we figured out which way we wanted to go. We headed through the campground and towards the pet area and the lodge.

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the swimming area.

 

We stopped at the dog park area. It is not fenced in but is just a big meadow area. We let Savannah off her leash. There was another dog there. It was a 11 week old puppy that was already a little bigger than Savannah. At first Savannah was shy and hiding under the picnic table but soon she was running around being chased by the puppy which she loves. I was so busy watching them and talking to the owner of the puppy that I forgot to take any pictures. Errr!! We walked back to the campground and sat out for awhile doing some reading. Weather is nice, just right for hiking and relaxing as it is not too hot or too cold.

 

The next day we went straight back towards the lodge and the south falls area. I love those mossy trees.

 

Below is a gift shop and there is also a lodge with another small gift shop and cafe near by.

 

 

Below is the map showing where the waterfalls are located.

We checked out the South Falls waterfall from above. Dogs are not allow to walk down the trail that goes all the way to the bottom of the waterfall. We did that our last time here. In fact we took the trails around about 5 of the trails then. That was a long hike with lots of up and down the hills. That was a workout for sure.

 

 

 

 

Savannah would have liked to take the trail. Why our humans so silly to not let dogs go on all the trails she thinks.

 

Later in the afternoon, we took a drive to Silverton as we needed a few things at the store. On the way, we passed the many Christmas tree farms we remembered from being here before. Another beautiful drive.

 

 

 

Wednesday was another day for hiking. We drove over to the trail head at Winter Falls. We planned to hike to the North Falls Viewpoint, about a mile one way. Not sure what happen to the Winter Falls. It is one of the bigger falls but didn't seem to be flowing for some reason. We hiked the beautiful trail through the rain forest.

 

 

 

I am not knowledgable about mushrooms and so don't know if this is edible or not. A pretty mushroom however.

 

Hey, I want to go swimming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

North Falls is one of the largest waterfalls at 136 feet. There is a huge grotto behind the waterfall. We are on the dog friendly rim trail, but the trails down to the various waterfalls are not unfortunately, At least we got a good view from above.

 

 

We had some snacks at the North Falls trail head and then headed back. Another great hike under our belt.

We had a good time here at Silver Falls and it is certainly a place we will return to when we are up in the area again.

Our next stop is Cathlamet, Washington and then back towards the coast of Washington and the Olympic Park area.

Stay tuned.

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