Day 4
7/9/2019
My final day in Portland was spent on another tour I booked through Viator. I highly recommend looking at Viator for cheap day trips and tickets for the city you are visiting. Day tours are a great way to get out of the city and see some nature, meet other travelers, and gain local knowledge from the guides. The tour I signed up for was the Morning Half-Day Multnomah Falls and Columbia River Gorge Waterfalls Tour from Portland. Whew, that was a long name!
And guess who my tour guide was?! John, who was the same tour guide as the day before!
After picking everyone up from their respective hotels, we were off to the east to visit the Columbia River Gorge area. On our drive, we were able to make out Mount St. Helens and Mount Hood in the distance!
We then headed onto the historic Columbia River Highway, a two-lane road that winds it way along the Columbia River and hugs the sides of mountains.
Vista House
Our first stop, ironically, was a pit stop. However, this pit stop was an attraction in itself! We got out to stretch our legs at the Vista House at Crown Point. It is also known as a ‘$100,000 outhouse’ to the Oregonians when it was first built because this marble rest stop was built in 1918 and was originally budgeted at $17,000. However, the architect wanted to make this building the grandest rest stop in the country, so the budget ballooned to $100,000, which was an astronomical amount during that time. The building and view are quite marvelous!
After the stop at Vista House, the bus made its way along the Columbia River Highway to a series of four waterfalls.
Latourell Falls
The first stop was my favorite, Latourell Falls. This one had the longest, continuous drop. I enjoyed this waterfall the most because of its beauty and because it was not very crowded.
On our way to the second waterfall, we made a quick stop at the country’s smallest post office. The post office is located in Bridal Veil, Oregon. The main reason it continues to stay open is because brides-to-be like to mail their wedding invitations from here!
Wahkeena Falls
The second waterfall we saw was called Wahkeena Falls. This one is more of a cascading waterfall with many levels. If you look way out in the distance, you can almost make out the top of the waterfall!
Multnomah Falls
The waterfall of all waterfalls, and the one we traveled all this way for was Multnomah Falls. It is a very famous and popular waterfall to visit. It even has its own visitors center and restaurant. There are three main viewing points for the waterfall, the base, the bridge, and the top of the waterfall. We unfortunately only had about 30 minutes to visit, which did not leave enough time to reach the top. However, I did make it to the base and bridge viewing points. Although this waterfall is beautiful, it was extremely crowded and the amount of people on the bridge made me very nervous. The amount of people made it difficult to get pictures.
On my way back to the bus, I couldn’t resist the irresistible smell coming from one of the food stalls. As soon as you get to the visitor’s center you can smell it! It smells like fresh baked cookies, but its actually cinnamon and sugar covered nuts! I grabbed a pack of pecans, and they were delicious! Yum!
Horsetail Falls
Our last stop of the tour was Horsetail Falls. It is named so because when the water hits the ledge, the water fans out and looks like a horsetail.
It was then back to the city for drop-offs around mid-day, as it was a half-day tour.
International Rose Test Garden
In the afternoon, I decided to walk up to Washington Park to visit the International Rose Test Garden. It was raining by the time I reached the top, but that did not take away from the rose garden’s stunning beauty! It smelt amazing! This garden is where new variations of roses are tested to see if they can be classified as a new type of rose. If they pass the multi-year test, then it can become a new species of rose! It was so nice walking through the many rows of different colored roses especially because I am partial to the yellow roses.
I ended my day by stopping by and browsing Powell’s Bookstore. As I mentioned in my other blog post, this place is MASSIVE! I got extremely lost inside! I kept going around in circles and visited only 3 rooms. This place is every bookworm’s dream! Unfortunately, since I am backpacking, I did not have any space to buy any books. Maybe next time!
