First two days of Spring Vacaton

Well we made it to Seaside last night at 6pm. It has been an eventful two days to get here.  I started off my Friday morning by getting the last minute things together in the Rubbermaid containers and then loading everything into the truck.  At 8 am I got Lindy all packed into the truck and headed off to drop her at Ann & Lloyd’s.  While I was there, I put her up onto Ann’s bed and when I got up Lindy jumped off the bed before I had a chance to grab her and down she went onto the hardwood, slipped and went splat. There was no yelp or ouch but she couldn’t walk on her left hind leg she also couldn’t even scratch her little face. So off to the vet to see if it was just a bruise or something more, well it wasn’t a break but she did rupture her cruciate ligament in her knee. This meant surgery. We explained to the Dr Macleod that we were leaving on vacation in three hours, so he booked her in for Saturday, he also offered to keep her at the clinic while we were on vacation, but I really didn’t want her to be by herself for three weeks. So if was great that Ann and Lloyd love Lindy as much as we do and offered to nurture her back to health while we were gone,  So with Lindy taken care of, it was back home again to finish packing and wait for Len to come home from work.

 Then we were off across the border, we did find more snow down south that we had at home but we left the snow behind when we turned to head to Tri Cities. We were both tired so we decided to stay in Kennewick at the Days Inn. We were lucky to get a room as they were having a big soccer tournament. We were both surprised as it seemed kind of early in the season for soccer but It was 62 degrees there.

After a good night’s sleep and a hearty breakfast we headed off. While driving on I84 down the Columbia River Gorge, I found the attraction Stonehenge. It turns out it is a war memorial in Maryhill, WA across the river. The Stonehenge Memorial was built by entrepreneur Sam Hill as a tribute to the soldiers of Klickitat County, Washington, who lost their lives in World War I. This Stonehenge is a full-scale replica of England's famous Stonehenge in Wiltshire and since we won’t be going to England any time soon, we figured this would be fun to see.

 

After that we travelled on Highway 14 in Washington, stopped to see an old locomotive from the Great Western Railway and then back across the river to The Dalles and the Columbia River Gorge Interpretive Centre. 

 

 

 I have wanted to go to this museum since the first time we went to the Oregon coast and we finally got there. We did find out some interesting information. During the Ice Age the gorge was formed because Ice Dams in Canada would break and flood the gorge forming what we now know as the Columbia River. We also learned some more about Lewis & Clark. They might have been the first government overrun. Turns out they were only supposed to spend $2500 on their expedition but turns out they spent over $50,000.  The picture  is an exhibit of settlers on the Oregon Trail.

 

 

After the museum we headed up the old highway and ended up on the Rowena Crest, where the views of the river were amazing, The road was very windy, hard to believe that they built the road in 1929 and it is till holding up pretty well.

View from the Crest

Our next stop was the Bonneville Dam and Locks. We got searched by a very nice dam guard and then preceded to the Visitor Centre.  We got to see the fish ladders but very few fish this time of year. They have also built a new lock; this one will hold a grain barge with 5 floats. The old one only held one barge and one float, so now it only takes one time through the lock instead of three, which saves almost an entire day of travel. There was also a map that showed all the Dams in BC, Washington, Idaho Montana and Oregon.  It is amazing how many dams are in this area, there was over 40.

                                    






                     







   The Fish Ladders

After the dam it was a quick trip through Portland, over to Beaverton and then over the Sunshine highway # 26 into Seaside. Not sure why they call it the sunshine highway as there was no sunshine, just rain on and off. We got checked into our room unpacked and time to relax. We are in a one bedroom with a Murphy bed in the living room and we are located on the backside of the resort. We can see the ocean from the balcony so that is fine. They did finish the construction on the balcony so we have a barbeque and can sit outside.







We did wake up to Sunshine on Sunday morning so it will be a good way to start our time here.

We did get an update from Ann on Lindy, she had her surgery around 9:00am and the vet said the surgery went well and she is doing fine. They put a morphine patch on her yesterday and she is comfortable. They are keeping her until Monday so they can monitor her pain and administer meds as needed. Ann & Lloyd will pick her up on Monday. Ann says that either she or Lloyd is home all the time so she will be well looked after. It would have been harder if it happened while Len and I were working and no one was home during the day. So they are going to give her extra love and attention.