In the Shadow of St. Helens

Every day I catch myself saying at the end of the day, “Wow, it feels like we experienced a lifetime today.” Today was another one of those days.

We began it lazily at our huge hotel room in Kennewick, WA. It was another one of so many undeserved blessings on this trip we’ve received…for a whole $10 extra we got this suite with three beds and the space of about three hotel rooms, plus a fridge, microwave, etc. It made last night’s supper very fun with stuff I bought from the store across the street. We sat on the beds, had an indoor picnic, and watched a movie after the boys had swam for a couple hours.
But I digress…back to this morning. When we finally got up and around, we went downstairs for the free breakfast. Brendon and I had fun with their waffle irons and made us huge waffles. He watched it cook like it was the perfect meal.

Once on the road, we headed into the Eastern Mouth of the Columbia River Gorge. Around every corner was a new site for us to talk about. We saw dozens of windsurfers, three huge dams, tug boats, cliffs of lava rock, forests of Huge Western Cedars and so much more. Our favorite moment was coming around the corner and having Mt. Hood framed in our windshield. Ian wanted to know where the lava was though.

We stopped at Multnomah falls, which was one of the things on Kiley’s list. She had sentimental memories of going there with her family as a kid and wanted us to share them. Multnomah Falls is tall and just breathtaking. We hiked, the full mile switchback trail all the way too the top and Ian and I leaned out to look straight down (Kiley and Brendon stayed back up the trail – the edge was a little much for them.)

From there, we drove through Portland and Vancouver – two of the more beautiful cities in our country I think and North to Mt. St. Helens. I had done some research and found one state park campground that we really wanted to stay at, but they don’t take same day reservations (guess I should have done my research sooner). When we arrived, they had one site left that would accomadate us so we took it. We were just blown away again when we discovered that we could not have chosen a much better campsite. It’s fairly secluded and there’s a play structure at the end of the site surrounded by trees – it seems none of the kids in the area have discovered this one yet and are playing on the others (it’s not easy to find unless you’re in our campsite). So the boys have their own private playground. There’s a ton of trails through the trees, so they’ve been playing games and having their own fantastic adventures.

As we’ll be here a couple nights, we set up the awning and the screen porch. It adds so much extra room to the camper and allows us to eat outside even on evenings like tonight when there’s a constant kind of drizzle. Some may not like the light rain while camping…but I love it at night. It puts me right to sleep!