Leaving Portland, we headed east on I84 through the Columbia River Gorge. The trip between Portland and Hood River is one fantastic view after another. It's simply gorgeous! The trip to Hood River from Portland is only about 60 miles but it took us about 5 hours. It was extremely enjoyable.
On the route you come across the Multnomah Falls right on the interstate. We love water falls and this is one of the best we've ever seen. It is one of the tallest water drops of any U.S. water falls. It's so relaxing to sit and watch the water fall into the pond at the bottom.
The Bonneville dam was built on the Columbia river in 1933 and is a major producer of electricity for the area. It was built as a WPA project under Roosevelt and has been upgraded several times to produce larger amounts of electricity.
I was surprised to see that they still allow tourist into the turbine area of the dam (you know, the terrorist thing) but they did and it was interesting.
This dam was one of the first in the country to utilize fish ladders to allow the salmon to return to their spawning grounds above the dam. They are very much involved with making sure the fish are not effected by the dam. You can go into the visitor's center and actually see the fish swimming up the ladders.
This is an extremely large white sturgeon that is housed in the fish hatchery at the dam. Sturgeon can become 20 feet long and live for over 100 years. From a distance, they could easily be mistaken for a shark but, of course, they aren't dangerous.
