Sunday, August 4, 2013

PartII - Aug. 3 Boise ID to Seattle, WA via Columbia River Gorge (day9)

Forgot to add some pictures from Boise.   Below was on the side of the Grove Hotel.  Quite pretty

And the Idaho State capital building was beautiful - modeled after the real Capital.  With a memorial to Lincoln on the grounds, as well as Lewis & Clark with the Nez Perce Indians.
 
So that was Boise.


Saturday, Aug 3rd.
Left Boise after a great breakfast at a local spot: Goldy's.  People were waiting to get in.  Fortunately we were willing to sit at the counter.  Blueberry muffin that was solo yummy and filled with blueberries.   Rick said it reminded him of the real Jordan Marsh muffins.


A beautiful flying day - heading north west to the Columbia River Gorge - specifically landing in the town of The Dalles.  Went over quite a lot of mountains.  


Terrain changed as we approached the Gorge.  Below is the John Day river - which flows into the Columbia east of The Dalles (where we are landing).
The John Day Dam was the Dam Riley helped fix on World's Toughest Fixes.




Interesting descent into the airport, which is jointly owned by two states (WA and OR),   The airport is located on a small peninsula sticking into the Columbia River.   Oh, and there are very large hills all around.  It is a gorge after all .

  Very nice people at the FBO.  They mentioned how lucky we were today, as there was almost no wind.  It is usually quite windy, with winds of 30 knots yesterday, and 50 knots a few days ago.    They let us use a crew car, with directions to the Discovery Center and the Dalles Dam.

We had a picnic lunch at the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center.  

It was amazing seeing the Gorge - and thinking of Lewis and Clark coming down the river with a group of 30 people - and how small they must have felt going through this gorge - which would just tower over them.  
Lewis & Clark passed through the Gorge in October 1805 and returned in April 1806.  As the Discovery Center placard stated:  "they thrilled to the majesty of the scenery".



Our next stop was to visit The Dalles Dam, which was built in 1952, in response to the need to use natural resources to power the area.    It is a concrete-gravity run-of-the-river dam that generates a total of 1779.8 MW .   (Got a great view f the dam during take-off.)

 The dam is 1.5 miles long, and the power plant itself is a half mile long,  It creates enough power to supply 2 cities the size of Portland, Oregon.    There are two fish ladders (for the very abundant salmon), and locks to improve ship traffic through the Columbia.  Just so incredibly impressive.  (It's not the same dam Riley fixed in The World's Toughest Fixes - but very similar, and on the same river.) 



Left the Gorge to meet up with Tor and Lev in Seattle.  Flying to Seattle was only possible because Rick has his Instrument license.  There were just a lot of clouds in the way.


Landed at Boeing field just outside of Seattle - and had some interesting planes sitting near by when we parked the plane at Galvin Aviation.

They were there for the Seafair air show happening this weekend over Lake Washington.

Great view from our hotel




Met up with our friends from Norway and had dinner at the Blueacre - just 2 blocks away.  Absolutely great food.   I had Black Cod 
Delicious and melt in your mouth good.  

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