24 Hours Without Kids

One thing I wanted for my birthday was a day with Travis and no kids. The evening before my day off Travis had the idea to ask his parents if they would be up for having the boys for a sleepover so we could get an "early" start on my day. Luckily, they agreed despite already having the boys' cousin Alli over that night also. So we went to dinner and saw Sherlock Holmes.
In the morning we had breakfast at Elmer's then headed up to the Columbia River Gorge to hike Multnomah Falls, the main attraction of my day. Thankfully it was a gorgeous weekend, unfortunately that meant this touristy spot was packed.

The lower Falls


From the bridge looking down at the lower Falls


From the bridge looking at the bottom of the upper Falls


The hike to the top is about a 600 foot incline on a bunch of sharp switch backs. We stopped at one switchback to try and take a picture of ourselves with the waterfall in the background.


Someone hiking offered to take a picture for us. I had it all set to focus on us on the right with the waterfall behind us on the left. Of course if you hand your camera over, there's no guarantees, so instead I have a random tree in focus on the right and us out of focus on the left and apparently Travis isn't good enough to make it all the way in frame. Sure, it looks decently focused after editing and shrunken, but still, where's the waterfall!? It's the whole point! Oh well.


The crest of the hike is actually above the top of the waterfall, so then you hike down and then along Multnomah Creek before reaching the lookout at the waterfall. So here's Multnomah Creek.


Almost to the viewpoint


Looking down at the less motivated ants below


The top of Multnomah Falls doesn't actually start straight from the creek, it starts from the splash pool of this little waterfall. I think this little drop should be included in the party with it's two big brothers, after all it's closer to the upper falls than the upper and lower are to each other, but sadly it gets none of the fame. I had to do some searching to even find if it had a name, so now presenting: Little Multnomah Falls.


On the way back down (we really liked going down last unlike our hike on Cascade Head!) we stopped at this big tree for a picture


Multnomah Falls is definitely a must do spot, but being so touristy it's not one worth repeating really, or at least often. We'll take the kids when they're a bit older.

While we were in the Gorge, I wanted to check out the cool, old Vista House on Crown Point. You can see it from the freeway below and I've always wondered about it.


When we got there we found that it was closed due to high winds.


Also while in the neighborhood, and because it was my day, I wanted to stop at the View Point Inn. It's the place they filmed the prom scene in Twilight.




If you don't know this is a Twilight set piece than you probably don't care either.


The Inn desperately needs a new roof, so they have the Twilight Walk of Fame where people can buy bricks with whatever text on them. Of course the bricks next to the "famous" ones cost more. They're pretty funny to read.


The popular one is "Edward Cullen Bella Swan Forever" but there's also 3 together with "James", "Victoria" and "Laurent", a "Bella Swan", "Edward Cullen" and "Alice Cullen Jasper Hale." It's obviouse that more recently some newer "famous" bricks have been added with "Robert Pattinson & Kristen Stewart" and a solo "Robert Pattinson" and "Kristen Stewart." They must have needed more room to charge for higher priced bricks.


We tried again for a picture of us at the View Point Inn.


Honestly, it's kind of funny trying to get a hand held picture when there's more than one person!


We closed out the day with a trip to IKEA, dinner at one of my favorites, The Old Spaghetti Factory, where the clam sauce is divine, and some shopping at Clackamas Town Center (a big mall).

Seriously, what a great 24 hours!