Waterfalls Galore!

But first, a stop at Vista House. Almost 100 years old, it was built as a rest stop observatory for travelers on the old Columbia River Gorge Highway and as a fitting memorial honoring Oregon’s pioneers.

There's a great view of the Columbia River gorge -

Including Beacon Rock, which we climbed up a few days ago.

Since I was there pretty early, I had the whole place to myself -

Except for the volunteer guide, who showed me exactly where to stand to get the magical picture of the windows.

Okay, Sondra, I can see you're getting impatient... So here are the waterfalls -

There's a whole row of them along the Historic Columbia River Highway, on the south side of the river east of Portland. The first one is just past Vista House and is definitely one of my favorites - Latourell Falls. It's unique in that it drops straight down, instead of tumbling.

I love the lichen-covered columnar basalt formations around the falls.

A mile to the east is Shepperds Dell, just a short hike from the road.

And next comes Bridal Veil Falls, a nice double cascade.

Wahkeena Falls is another double, but I only got a photo of the lower portion.

And then we get to the granddaddy of them all - Multnomah Falls, the second tallest waterfall in the US, is another double waterfall. The upper falls are 542 feet high, while the lower falls are 69 feet.

I walked up to the bridge shown in the prior picture to get a better shot of the upper falls.

It was just perfect!

The last waterfall I went to was Horsetail Falls. You can probably see how it was named.

The flowers seemed to be growing right out of the lava rock.

I think I could stay in this area all summer and never run out of things to do, but time is up and we're moving on.