Saturday, July 27, 2024 - Today, we drove for three and a half hours from Newport, Oregon to Cascade Locks, Oregon on the Columbia River. The roads were great and the weather was excellent. We did have some traffic in Portland since were were vectored through Portland by our RV Life software. It was not too bad, but it did slow us up a little. It was tight, but we were able to get into our spot and set up without problem. We are about 200 feet from an active train track that has trains come by day and night. These trains sound their horns to notify cars that they will be crossing the nearby road. Going to be a long night.  We drove around the Cascade Locks area to see where the sternwheeler is located. We planned to take the sternwheeler on the Columbia River on Sunday.

Sunday, July 28, 2024 - We started the day by driving past Hood River to the Columbia River Discovery Museum. We entered the facility and they had three rooms set aside with differing exhibits concerning the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Native Americans and their way of life, and the geologic history of the region. It was informative and interesting. We spent about and hour and a half looking at the exhibits. Then we proceeded to a caged area on the perimeter of the facility where two rescue bald eagles are kept. We could see the birds, but just barely since the slats on the enclosure were so close together. Both birds could not fly since they had been injured and had had portions of their wings clipped.

We then drove back to Cascade Locks to take a ride on the sternwheeler "Columbia Gorge." There are two trips that the boat makes; one to the east and then they return to the launch point to offload people who don't intend to take the western cruise. We stayed on and went on both cruises. Each one was about one hour long.

On the east-bound leg, we passed amongst a huge group of sailboats, kite surfers, water foil wind surfers and much more. They were everywhere. It was really very cool seeing the different hobbies all on display in one area. The sailboats in this area are Olympic competition boats and they are pretty expensive, even though they are small. Most of the them had only on person sailing the craft. Apparently, these boats are required to come to this stretch of water to practice before they can qualify or go to the Olympics. Many of the people came pretty close to the sternwheeler and made for some great video. It seem that this area had a landslide about 600 years ago that blocked a large portion of the river and made this an area that does not have swirling winds, so the wind surfers can easily navigate the river both up and down stream. We only went about a couple of miles upstream on the river before turning around and proceeding back to the launch area. We were not sailing directly into the wind, so the wind whipping across the deck was much higher than during our downwind motoring. When we arrived back at the launch point, a few people got off, but most chose to stay on board for the second leg of the excursion.

The second leg was down-river taking us past Cascade Locks, the Bridge of the Gods, and to the Bonneville Dam. We got some good photos of the bridge as we passed under it and we had some good Sun angles for photography. We were following a large barge that was being pushed down river by a tug boat. We made a U-turn jut above the Bonneville Dam and head back to the launch point. There were lots of fishing platforms along the side of the river where native Americans are allowed to stand with nets to catch salmon during the salmon runs. The Bonneville Dam flooded several major areas of white water where the native Americans had fished for centuries. The native Americans were allowed to keep their traditional fishing rights even after the dam was constructed.

Monday, July 29, 2024 - It was a little rainy when we woke, so we just hung around the RV for a while. We had planned a bike ride that we put on hold due to the sprinkles. We decide that rather than just sitting around, we would drive to Hood River to the Walmart there to stock up on some provisions (buy groceries). The weather in Hood River was better than in Cascade Locks, so be got excited about our postponed bike ride. We returned to the RV, put the groceries away, and decided that we would take the bike ride even though the weather was drizzly at the time. There are three sections of excellent, paved bike path along Highway 84. We could ride from our RV, through Cascade Locks and get on the pathway just west of town. This was a four-mile section of trail that would take us to the bluff just above the Bonneville Dam. We couldn't access the dam since the trail did not take us all the way there. We turned around and rode back to our start point. We decided to pass the start point and ride on the road to the east. We crossed Highway 84 and then rode on a frontage road. Just prior to being forced onto the freeway, we turned right and proceeded to climb a pretty steep hill. The gradients were as much as 14% on my Garmin and it was a challenge. I was amazed that I was able to handle the grade even though I was tiring. We climbed for quite a ways before deciding to turn around and head back. I felt good about my climbing on this particular day. It was work, but I could do it at some steep gradients. We then coasted back down the hill we had climbed and headed back to the RV.

After arrival, we decided to go to the Bonneville Dam Hatchery and Visitor Center. We have been there before, but since we were here and we had time, let's go check it out. The hatchery is very well maintained with lots of flower all around. They raise Chinook (King) salmon at this hatchery. There were "zillions" of fingerlings in the holding trays. They also have some large rainbow trout in a pool for display purposes mostly. You can buy fish food to feet the trout. The main attraction at the hatchery is "Herman the Sturgeon." Herman is a 500 pound, 85 year-old sturgeon that is 10-feet long. Herman swims around in a pool of about ten other sturgeon. The have an underwater viewing point too. After checking out the hatchery, we drove over to the Visitor Center for the dam where they also maintain the fish ladders and fish counting stations. We are between the salmon runs that normally come in April and October of each year. Right now, there is a run of steelhead going on. We got to see several of the steelhead swimming past the viewing area. They were large (about 10 to 15 pounds in size) and would sure be fun to get on a hook and line. The counting station is automated and monitored by a staff member who can leave for lunch, when necessary. After checking out the Visitor Center, we drove back to the RV in Cascade Locks.