Our New House

As many of you know by now, while we were in Portland spending Christmas with our kids, we also bought a house in Washougal, Washington, a few miles east of Portland, Oregon and across the Columbia River.

What first struck us was the fabulous views from the house. From the perspective of our back deck, a rainbow appears to end near downtown Washougal.

As if the Columbia River wasn't enough, we even get to watch traffic ply her waters. Here, two tugs head upstream. Often in the evenings, we see tour boats carrying people out to see what we get to see all day long.

Even at night, we get excellent eyewash. Across the river is Troutdale, Oregon. The two elongated light streaks you see are airplanes coming into Portland International Airport. The house itself had many of the basics, and is still a work in progress, but we feel that it is now at least somewhat presentable. This is our great room. When the weather isn't suitable to eat outside, we take our meals at the bistro table in the foreground or on the island to the right. Out the window you can see the table where we dine most this time of year. In the background, you can just glimpse the Columbia River.

We spend a lot of our time in this room. It is the meant to be a family room, but we call it our hobby room. Ted made the double desk with computer keyboard trays and a drawer. He reconfigured my sewing table on the left to match the desk. Mt. Hood can be seen out the window in front of the desk. There is a second deck off this room with more views of the river.

Back upstairs is our kitchen. It is well enough arranged that we can once again cook together, something we both enjoy.

Should you come visit, this is your bedroom. It is off of the hobby room. You will have a full bath and exercise room.

Our bedroom also has stunning views of the Columbia, a walk in closet, and a very comfortable bath with an over-sized tub that has surrounding windows with more views. The over-sized shower and toilet have a separate room.

We've already made a lot of improvements including replacing all but one of the light fixtures, building a storage room in what had been called a crawl space, sewing curtains and pillows, and many more things. Our son, Brent is doing a great job of landscaping the place during his days off. We'll include a few shots of the outside in a future posting. We'd love for you to come and see us in the beautiful Pacific Northwest or if you are already here, come on up the ridge.

Mt. Hood

We live in a beautiful part of the world. Because of that, we spend a lot of time on our back deck. From there, we can see many things. All of the photos below were taken from there.

We live in a place called Lookout Ridge. From here, we can see the weather coming in from the West long before it hits us.

We can watch the neighbors, like this killdeer foraging. It appears that she's working on her second brood of the season.

Across the river in Oregon, we can see the mouth of the Sandy River as it flows into the mighty Columbia.

In the other direction we can see the beginning of the Columbia Gorge National Scenic area. It is a panorama that we can stare at for hours. We often have dinner on our back deck with this in the background. Easy on the digestion. The most spectacular thing we see from our deck, however, is Mt. Hood.

Sometimes, she only reveals her peak to us.

Sometimes we get to see the lower slopes.

Sometimes she shares her beauty completely with us.

Every time we see her, she is a little bit different. Here she is at 5:00 am. Note the condensation plume from her peak. This often happens when there is relatively humid air with strong winds aloft. It is a phenomenon similar to the condensation you see when high flying airplanes go over.A few hours later at 9:00, she has changed completely.

Here she is at noon.

By 3:00 pm, the shadows are beginning to lengthen.

By 7:00 pm, shadows have lengthened a great deal. Note how much brighter the peak appears due to the low angle of the sun which shines at full intensity at her peak, but not on her lower slopes.

By 8:30 pm, the change has become quite marked. Note the reddish cast of the peak which is now much brighter relative to the lower slope.

As we watch beautiful Mt. Hood change through the day and from day to day, it seems to put the world into perspective. We've been in our house now for four months, and are still inspired every time we look at her. May our souls never be so dead that she fails to move us.

What Penny Did for Mothers' Day

Brent and Tyler suggested that we should spend Mother's Day together enjoying the beautiful Pacific Northwest. We made a few sandwiches and took off.

Along the way we had to stop at one of our favorite places. This is Cape Horn. In the distance on the left (north) bank is Beacon Rock. First described by Lewis and Clark, it marks the eastern edge of the tidal influence on the Columbia.

We arrived at a small parking area, and started up a neat, well maintained trail with Brent and Tyler.

The trail parallels beautiful Falls Creek. It's worth the journey just on its own merit.

There are lots of rapids, and places such as this one, where the creek has carved its way through the native basalt. The sound of the rushing water was at the same time soothing and exhilarating.

Tyler did most of the hike at least twice, running ahead then back, but even energetic ten-year olds have to rest every now and then.

Brent, Tyler, and Penny stand on a footbridge overlooking a steep rapids.

This is what the bridge traversed, spectacular, but not as spectacular as what lay in store.

From the rapids, the trail went mostly uphill. Here Penny takes an opportunity to catch her breath beside a big, beautiful Douglas Fir the roots of which made a nice set of steps.

A few feet further we could hear the thunder of the falls. We continued, and were rewarded with this view of the upper cascade of the falls, unimaginatively named the Falls Creek Falls.

A further quarter mile and we were at the edge of the pool at the base of the falls. Here you can see the two lower cascades, but cannot see the upper cascades shown above. We each picked out a rock and sat and enjoyed our sandwiches. This was one of those places where all you want to do is sit, take slow, deep breaths and let the beauty and majesty of the place wash over you.

After a while, we reluctantly began our hike back out noticing as we had not on the way in, the many smaller beauties offered by the area.