We checked out of our hotel in Salem, OR and drove to Multnomah Falls which is the second highest waterfall in the country. Jay hung back at the car to catch up on a few things and I took the kids on a short 1/2 mile walk to the bridge to get a closer look. It was pretty crowded with tourists and I had an irrational fear that Beckett could squeeze through the railings of the bridge, so I held his hand and kept him close, which he didn’t appreciate. Otherwise, the waterfall was really pretty and worth the stop.
Brooke was brave enough to ask a park ranger how long it takes for a drop of water to reach the bottom from the top and we found out that it’s 30 seconds!
We also checked out the visitor center and Beckett noticed a railroad track on the topographical map that we were looking at and asked me if we were going to see a train. Sure enough, a couple minutes after walking out of the visitor center a very long train went right by us! This was definitely more interesting and memorable to Beckett than the waterfall and I’m glad he saw one! It was such a coincidence!
After leaving the falls we realized we messed up our chances to see Latourell Falls as we would have to circle back and burn almost an hour. That combined with the kids not being super interested in Multnomah Falls made us decide to skip it. So, our next stop was downtown Portland to visit Powell’s City of Books. Powell’s City of Books is the largest independent book store in the world and it lives up to its name! We knew this would be the highlight of Brooke’s day since reading is her favorite thing to do and she’s finishing chapter books at record speed these days!
We walked around for probably an hour or so and Brooke was in heaven with all the Boxcar Children, Rainbow Magic and Magic Treehouse books they had. Jay thought it was pretty cool that they have just as many used books as new. We all wished we had a store like this near us!
As we walked back to our car it became clear (yet again) that Brooke is going to 100% be a city girl. And probably the biggest and brightest city she can find.
We departed Portland and drove a few hours north into Washington state.
Jay found a hotel/casino to stay for the night and I was worried it was going to be smoky, but our room was actually really nice and we couldn’t even tell we were in a casino. Jay took Brooke to the pool for an hour or so and they surprised me with getting a load of laundry done. Beckett wanted to hang out with me in the room while I sorted through our suitcases and tried to catch up on organizing our mess of belongings!
Leave a Reply