Well let’s try this again, I got all my typing down, went to add pictures and deleted 2/3 of everything.  I will eventually get the hang of this, so here goes.

So I am really glad that we own a travel trailer and not a tent trailer. We spent the night in an atmospheric river, the wind blew, the trailer shook but we didn’t have any branches fall on us, just all around.  Overall though we came out unscathed.  We had a leisurely morning, went on a walk around the park and saw a few interesting things.  

This first was a grain barge that was taking grain probably from Idaho or from the Palouse.  These barges also pick up at various ports along the river, there are a number of grain depots all along the Columbia and the Snake rivers.   The Columbia is 1243 miles long and has the second largest flow of water besides the Mississippi in North America. 

This is the Bridge of the Gods, it was originally built in 1926 as a toll bridge to connect Oregon and Washington States. The toll was 50 cents. The bridge was raised 36 feet in 1938 to accommodate the  reservoir from the new Bonneville Dam.  The name the Bridge of the Gods comes from the local indigenous tribes because in 1260 there was a landslide that created a bridge over the river that allowed the natives to cross with dry moccasins, only the gods could create it.  Today there is still a toll on the bridge but it is still only 50 cents. 

The name Cascade Locks comes from the fact that they built locks at the Bonneville Dam over the Cascade rapids that allowed boats to continue to go downstream towards the ocean.  At the town they actually created a spot for the sternwheelers of the day to disembark and explore the river gorge.   We read all about these sternwheelers and as we were leaving, what did we see on the river but an actual sternwheeler.

So we took the easy route down to Brookings, into Portland and then down the I5, over Grants Pass into California and then up the coast to Brookings.  We got into our campground after dark, managed to get semi set up, will finish in the light of the morning.  The best part was listening to the crashing waves all night.  Here is a picture of our view for the next couple of weeks. Hopefully the rain will slowdown a bit but I am looking forward to the King Tides that are supposed to becoming.

We are having a few problems with the trailer that we hope a mobile RV guy can help us out with. Couldn’t get any service at Campers World as it is a weekend and we didn’t want to stay in Portland.  Also they were booking into March for repairs, they say that the mobile repair is the way things are going.

We are also going to take the day get completely set up and then head into Brookings to get a lay of the land in the daylight.