RoadRunnersUSA .... On the Road to Cure Leukemia!: 1st

The Columbia River in Portland has whole communities living in houses on the water. There are some really cute litte cottages with trees, flowers and gardens floating happily on the river - many of them double story buildings. Some of the houses are a lot bigger and could fit in really well in a very upper class neighborhood. Outside many of these houses are very nice power boats or sailboats.... looks like a different sort of life. There are about 10 houses to a strip, backed up against another ten facing the other way, all tied up to pilons firmly planted in the ground under the water and each strip with their own jetty.. It looks rather quaint and all the colors of the flowers make it really pretty in places.

On Friday we drove around the back way, the little roads through Zigzag and Rhododendron on the Cascade Range, to Mt Hood. It was a lovely drive through little towns and gently winding roads trees that grew ever taller and beautifully green. And then, as we came around a corner - there was Mt Hood. There was very little ice left on the mountain and it had a gray look to the rock - quite eerie and very lovely as it perched above the tree line right ahead of us but definately not as awesome as it looks when one drives down the Columbia River Gorge - seeing it from a distance is definately more impressive. It seemed to jump around as we went around the bends in the road, appearing in first one rear view mirror and then another - and then back in front of us again.

The sunshine lit up the inside of the forests, showing the trees laden with green moss on every limb and leaf. Much of the time we were driving through tree tunnels and when they did not quite make a tunnel, it looked as if the branches and leaves were reaching for those across the road - very beautiful with a million shades of green lit up with sunlight. We then headed north and onto the Columbia River Gorge for a lovely ride to the west again. Many of the trees have grown so high along the rivers edge, that there is not much opportunity to see the water at all, but we made full use of the pull offs and stops along the way.

We started out much earlier on Saturday morning, heading for Mt St Helens and Mt Rainer - if we had the time...... Heading back into Washington, we drove through the through Amboy and Yale, where we found the most beautiful lakes that we followed for many miles. They seemed to go on and on forever with many people have an enormous amount of fun every type of watercraft one could think of. The wind blew riffles onto the water making them all turn silver in the sunlight - reallly lovely. And yes, I did take a good number of photographs! We wound our way into the beautiful Gifford Pinchot National Forest and up to the Mt St Helens National Volcanic Monument. There are very large tracts of land that have only small shrubs and lots and lots of rocks littered all over the place. I presume this is some of the damaged area from the 1980 eruption. There were big tree stumps - it looked as if the trees had been twisted off - and inside the stumps were new plants growing - little ones, but new life anyway.

Many, many people were camping in the forest all along the road. There were little roads leading to a level patch every mile or so and it was evident that this was a very popular place to camp. We did not see any litter along the road which was good too. There had been a good few fires in the mountains and the smoke and haze was fairly heavy, turning all the mountains that hazy blue/gray color and limiting the view much of the way. It was still beautiful. Every now and then there was a splash of red inbetween the green - young maple trees. There are a good many different types of trees there and some were simply humongous - there were an incredible number of enormous tree stumps in the forests. The stumps were mostly grown over with thick moss and smaller trees had started sprouting out of them - even some pretty blue flowers on one of them!

It was strange to see this volcano, sticking up out of a sea of green trees and hills, all barren and lifeless. There was not much ice left on her either but we got some really nice photographs, different views and then headed further north to Mt Ranier.

Here the trees grew up! They were so tall I could not get them all in one camera lens at times..... The forests seemed to be deeper and darker and the sunlight only lit up parts of the tree trunks and ferns that were growing there. There were enormous patches of ferns that lay like mohair blankets over part of the forest floor. The sun touched only part of these leaves which created a very strange look indeed. In between all this greenery, the maple trees made an occasional appearance and then suddenly there would be a patch of barren rock - sometimes all twisted looking and at times with a pine tree trying to grow in the middle of solid rock.

We came across a place where there was a water carved gorge that was 160 foot down to the water! The carving was still going on as the glacier melt screamed down the gully carrying logs and tree limbs with it too. It was a really uncomfortable feeling looking down into that from so high up. We did a short trail walk and crossed over on a little wooden bridge - I did not stand there too long at all. All around was rock that had scrape markings on them - these were the marks created when the glaciers pushed over the rocks and now we were standing on them.......... made for some serious thoughts about the fleeting time we are all on earth.

The trees were thick and big up here, but if you look over the top of them when on a hill, there are thousands of dead trees sticking up out of the still growing ones. The growing ones are definately not small at all and it looked very odd with these grey sticks sticking up all over the place. We came around one corner where we could look over and see the road we had just been on - it seemed as if it was a long way down already. Anyway, I asked Frank to stop for me to take a photograph and when I got out of the bakkie and turned around my mouth dropped open - there was Mt Ranier in all her glory! Right in my face and seemingly close enough to touch......... What a joy. There are 26 major glaciers on Mount Rainier and we could see a little bit of that blue color we saw in the glaciers in Alaska.

And then we came across some meadows of amazing colors of wildflowers, the lakes lit up the scenery and created the most amazing reflections of both the flowers, trees and I even caught some reflections of the volcano in a few of the lakes - these are beautiful pictures with white, red, blue, orange, many different shades of green and and enormous volcano in them. Lovely. As we drove further down the road, the mountain loomed over us appearing in the gaps between the trees reminding us that we are, after all, very small. The sun was definately on the downward curve by now and it tried to get into the thicker forests with not much luck. They now looked dark and almost ominous but the trees on the outer edges were still lit up with yellow orange light with sun beams lighting up the road where they could reach. There were many little streams, rippling over the rocks and catching the setting sunshine too - really beautiful. Later on we passed a flower farm filled with different colors - but that could not come close to the wildflowers up next to those ponds and in the meadows along the way.

By now the cameras were full, the water bottles empty and we hunted down the interstate southwards again. We got back home to Skilpad right as it was getting dark - even passing an ice cream shop in the need to get home again. The laptop is groaning with the thousands of photos - but I cannot bear to delete any. Much sorting is going to have to happen.

Sunday morning we decided to get a brush with an extension handle and wash the vehicles - bikes and all. It was gloriously warm weather - just perfect for playing in the water! A few people came up to chat to us, told us their stories and wrote names of loved ones on the RV. It was a lovely day that ended with us finding some delishous ice cream again.

I am starting to get the papers in order for Steven's doctor visit and getting really excited about seeing them both! Only a few days now......

Love and Light

Especially U3

Annie & Frank

XXXXXxxxx

ps. new photos posted