PNW Road Trip – Part 2 – Portland & Columbia Gorge

This is part two of the road trip, Navid/Jen/Sam and I took over Easter 2019. For Part 1 click here & for Part 3 click here

Day 3 of our trip consisted of heading to Portland for the day. Portland is a town I have heard lots of good things about. Good Food, Good Beer, Green, Good Vibes etc. Its also where Seth stays with Luke at the start of the second season of the OC so I have always wanted to go. We arrived early in the afternoon and hit a local brewery (Culmination Brewery) for some drinks on the patio as the sun had decided to come out.

Olive smiling for the camera

After a few. We headed back to the hotel to get ready for the night out. Calling an Uber we headed downtown to 10 Barrell Brewing which had an awesome rooftop patio. Unfortunately foreign drivers licenses are not accepted in Oregon and the girls didn’t have their passports so we needed to call an Uber back to the hotel. Funnily enough the same Uber picked us up (20 mins later). What was there waiting for us when we jumped in… my phone. I would lose my head if it wasn’t screwed on.

The night in Portland carried on including a video games bar and a dualling pianos night which I LOVED. I think the antics of the previous 2 days had tired us out though as we had a relatively early night ready for Columbia Gorge the next day.

Who remembers Crazy Taxi!!!

Day 4 started with a trip down the beautiful Columbia River Gorge. This, well gorge was shaped by glaciers in the last ice age and the resulting in a drastic landscape with plenty of waterfalls (and we saw quite a few of them). As a Geographer who studied glacial landscapes this was a beautiful day despite the crowds (the proximity to Portland makes it very busy for tourists). Here are some of the pictures we took of the waterfalls.

Latourell Falls

Bridal Veil Falls

The famous and very busy Multnomah Falls

From here we headed east away from Portland down the beautiful I-84 (Vietnam Veterans Memorial Highway) to a spot I had noted via Instagram. Rowena Crest Viewpoint for fabulous views of the gorge, river and snaking road network

Seeing as though here shadow is in the photo. Photocred by Jen.

From here we headed over the Columbia River heading to Yakima (to be continued)