The Albatross
Thursday 14 March 2024
Up the river we went. As it’s our last day on the Columbia River, we thought we’d head up stream on the Washington side, then back down on Oregon one. The Washington road is windy, however, it has lots of spots to turn off and views of this amazing stretch of water. We dribbled our way up and the scenery did not disappoint. This was aided by it being a stunning sunny day, still cool, but it beats the snot out of rain.
One of the highlights was a hydroelectric dam at Bonneville. The dam itself was impressive, however the best bit was the fish ladders so the salmon and trout can do their annual migration for sexy fun times. You could even watch the fish through glass windows. Quite a nice piece of engineering.
Eventually we had to turn around and head back, scooting down the freeway.
We did stop at the other side of the dam hoping to see the actual turbine rooms (closed on the other side to improve the visitor area), but alas no. We did get to see another fish run, a massive lock and a fish hatchery.
We needed to take the car into a rental agency so they could confirm it was still in one piece, and to organise another month’s renewal. They’ve generally been fantastic when dealing with them except once when I must have caught hold of the non-English speaking special needs lady. These folks were great, didn’t care about the missing bumper or dints, and after 30 minutes we were sorted and on our way.
For driving up and down a river, it was a really lovely day.