In August I completed the Bridge of the Gods Half Marathon. It was an event I’d heard about and thought about doing. So, when my friend, Molly, asked if I would do it with her for her first half marathon, I said, “Of course!”

The actual Bridge of the Gods spans the Columbia River connecting Washington & Oregon. Recently the bridge has gained popularity due to Cheryl Strayed ending her Pacific Crest Trail journey here as she describes in her book, Wild.

THE SHUTTLE

Parking for the event was on the Oregon side of the Columbia River. However, the start line was on the Washington side. Near the parking areas were buses to shuttle us across the bridge.

THE START

The start line, in Washington. We met Molly’s cousin there and gave our well wishes and awesome race vibes to each other.

This was a first sight for me. There was a drone taking pics at the start line.

THE COURSE

And, we’re off.

The openness of the metal grates while running across the bridge was an odd feeling. It was my favorite part of the race.

That small island off to the left is the finish line location.

Running past the Bridge of the Gods Trailhead along the Pacific Crest Trail.

I wasn’t aware there was such a nice trail along this section of the Columbia River. It was great.

We made it to the Stairway of Heaven. Not gonna lie, this was about the point where the fun ended.

The trail was well marked and well maintained. But, I was just not feeling it that day. Well… I should say I was feeling it too much. I’d been hill training, but those elevation changes hit me hard. I didn’t sleep well the night before. I didn’t eat quite as many calories that morning as I typically do on race days. I started my period that day. Possibly a combination of all these things contributed to the rougher than normal race. I’m not sure. But after the first few miles, it sucked and my body was paying for it.

The view of the Columbia Gorge was beautiful. The weather was perfect.
In the top photo you can see I-84 & the powerhouse at Bonneville Dam.

Oh, thank goodness we made it to the half way mark! I’m smiling, but cringing inside.
I did/do love the new tank I bought from Sparkle Athletic. I don’t often run in tanks, but I kinda liked it.

I didn’t take any photos on the way back to Cascade Locks. I was too busy struggling to get myself up and back down those damn hills.

Once, though, we saw the bridge it was such a beautiful sight I had to snap a pic.

This place has the best ice cream cones. It’s a must to stop and enjoy one anytime you travel through Cascade Locks. I absolutely thought about getting one and continuing the race with it. I wasn’t going to get a PR. I might as well have enjoyed some ice cream. But, I didn’t.

Crossing the pedestrian bridge to Marine Park and the finish line!

THE FINISH

I always run across the finish line, but this time I was too tired to even care.

It was a challenge, but we did it!

This event goes down as my worst half ever. I felt horrible and my finish time was slower than even my first half at Disney.

The good news is that we never gave up and we finished.

I’m so ticked off at my performance that I want to go back and kick this course in the ass next year.

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Powell’s Books is the largest new & used bookstore in the world. The Burnside location in downtown Portland is one entire city block. It’s huge with more & more rooms filled with books. It’s also slightly quirky, which fits in perfectly with Portland.

The entrance at Burnside & 10th

View of the 2nd story from the street.

Inside the Store

Rows & rows of books

The building is divided into rooms.

It seems as if staircases are everywhere leading to the various rooms.

Peeking out a 2nd story window. Of course there would be a Starbucks in view. Powell’s has their own coffee shop inside the store. There’s also a Peet’s Coffee right across the street on 11th. People around here are crazy about their coffee. Not me. Blech. Coffee. But, probably 99.9% of the rest of the population love coffee.

Throughout the bookshelves are mini categories and signage to appeal to your interests. I love Downton Abbey. I’m sure I would enjoy many of these books.

Another mini category: Whiskey. Interesting. I thought the only alcohol Portlanders cared about were micro brews & wine. Apparently I was wrong since Powell’s has this display. I’m not a fan of beer or wine, so I would take the whiskey option any day.

Sometimes a book’s cover draws you in.

I enjoy the signage on the end caps.
Am I the only one who thinks about how you get a job making these signs? I certainly can’t write the books, but I’d love to find cool ways to display them.
I also wonder this when I’m at museums. Coming up with creative ways to show off the history of an area, or an artist’s work seems like a job I would enjoy. I guess I missed my calling.

Souvenirs of all things Portland.
Bridges. We do have lots of bridges.
Biking. Oh boy, do we have lots of bikers.
Bigfoot. I haven’t seen him in our forest… yet…

Don’t forget to purchase your books on the way out.

To see what others are sharing for the month of October check out write31days.com

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The kids & I love going to the Audubon Society. We enjoy seeing their education birds & exploring the trails.

Depending on the direction you’re coming from, you may drive through a cool tunnel like this one on Cornell Road. The sign says it was built in 1940.

Interpretive Center & Nature Store

One of our favorite things is watching the birds outside the windows at the bird feeders.

Farm Kid2 & I attended a book signing by author & illustrator Lisa C. Manning. The book is titled Falcons in the City and based on Peregrine Falcons, like this education bird Finnegan.

Interesting Trees

In between the Care Center and the Nature Store are two particular trees of interest.

Left: The Giant Sequoia is the largest tree in the world. I don’t know how this one compares to others, but it is huge.

Right: The Dawn Redwood is said to be a living fossil. Prior to the 1940’s the tree was only found in fossil form. In 2005 it became Oregon’s official state fossil.

Wildlife Care Center

One room of the Care Center is open to visitors and has birds & turtles to see.

Education Birds

Some of the education birds are inside, others are in outdoor homes.

Left: Aristophanes, the Raven

Bottom Right: Ruby, a turkey vulture

Trails

The Audubon Society is a 150 acre nature sanctuary with miles of trails to hike.

Left: Notice the English Ivy climbing the tree…
The setting for the book Wildwood takes place here in the urban forest that is part of the Audubon Society. In the story, Ivy is a villain. In truth, English Ivy is a huge problem. It climbs everywhere and threatens native trees and plant.

Right: Balch Creek, which is also mentioned in the Wildwood Chronicles.

More Trails

Across Cornell Road from the Care Center & Interpretive Center are more trails part of Audubon’s Sanctuaries.

Also, if you head east up Cornell just a short way you will reach the popular Wildwood Trail. Pittock Mansion is a 25 minute hike up the trail. Continuing on you will reach Washington Park, home to Hoyt Arboretum and the Oregon Zoo.

To see what others are sharing for the month of October check out write31days.com

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On a fairly sunny day in May, the kids and I spent the day exploring sites in the Columbia Gorge.

COLUMBIA GORGE INTERPRETIVE CENTER

Although I wanted to see other things, my main reason for going to The Gorge that day was to visit the Columbia Gorge Interpretive Center. So, we went there first.

The Interpretive Center is on the Washington side of the Columbia River, but I had planned to drive most of the way on the Oregon side, up I-84. Even though, for the most part, I knew where to go I still turned on Google navigation. When I got closer to Portland, Google Maps changed my route. I don’t know why, but I followed it. It now had me crossing the Columbia River in Portland and driving the rest of the way on the Washington side, on SR-14, part of the Lewis & Clark Highway. This was my first time driving up The Gorge via Washington.

BRIDGE OF THE GODS

After touring the Interpretive Center, we drove over the Bridge of the Gods to get back to Oregon. As well as being a cool looking bridge, it is also part of the Pacific Crest Trail.

Cheryl Strayed ended her PCT travels here, as she tells in her book Wild. She was a nut & probably never should have hiked that trail as inexperienced as she was. But, it is a great story about not only her journey on the PCT, but also her journey through life getting her where she is now. It’s inspiring. I can’t wait until the movie comes out.

PACIFIC CREST TRAIL

Just over the bridge, in Oregon, is the little town of Cascade Locks. Here, we hiked a short way on the Pacific Crest Trail in search of a letterbox. Which, we found. Yay! One day we will hike more of this trail.

CASCADE LOCKS

We found another letterbox not far from the sign.

I’ve only been to Cascade Locks once or twice before, and I remember getting ice cream cones from this place. So in adding to that memory, I treated the kids. It was a warm day, perfect for licking ice cream.

BONNEVILLE DAM

BONNEVILLE FISH HATCHERY

From the dam, we went to the Bonneville Fish Hatchery.

MULTNOMAH FALLS

Our last stop of the day was a quick visit to Multnomah Falls.

Multnomah Falls is the highest year round waterfall in Oregon. Second largest in the US. The Upper Fall plummets 542 feet. The Lower Fall is 69 feet.

A few months prior a boulder fell through the Benson Bridge. This bridge allows you to continue your hike across the Falls and up to the top. The bridge was being repaired, so it and the trail were closed. It is now open, though.
The furthest we could go up the trail was to this observation point, which was fine since I didn’t want to spend a long time at the Falls anyway.

Excerpt from the journals of Lewis & Clark, April 9, 1806
“we passed several beautifull cascades which fell from a great hight over the stupendious rocks & the most remarkable of these casscades falls about 300 feet perpendicularly over a solid rock into a narrow bottom of the river on the south side. . . . several small streams fall from a much greater hight, and in their decent become a perfect mist which collecting on the rocks below again become visible and decend a second time in the same manner before they reach the base of the rocks.”

It was a long, fabulous day. I don’t even remember the kids arguing much.

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On the 5th of May the kids did not work on their regular curriculum. Instead, we had a Mexican themed party day.

I took the items in the pocket chart out and replaced them with Mexico related things. My mom gave me the map with info on it, which was a placemat from a restaurant. The photos, money, and dress up dolls came out of our North American Continent Box.

I read Tomie dePaola’s Adelita to the kids. It is a Mexican Cinderella story.

As a comparison, I also read Cinders by Jan Brett. This book is a Chicken Cinderella story, which of course, we loved. We also discussed Disney’s version of Cinderella.

This was a win, win, win conversation. I love Jan Brett, I love Tomie dePaola, and I love Disney.

For lunch we had one of my favorite meals: chicken tacos, with Spanish rice and beans. I even pulled out the hand painted dishes we bought in Mexico many moons ago.

We ate homemade churros after lunch.

Spanish bingo has been a huge hit on our Mexico days, so we played it again. Bingo prizes were leftover pencils & erasers.

The kids also made a few crafts that day.

It’s a lot of work to put together a theme day, but they are so much fun.

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We recently checked out a bunch of Eric Carle books from the library. We did a variety of activities based on the books, but by far our favorite was making a tissue paper collage Eric Carle style.

The Books

Maybe I grew up under a rock, but I sure don’t remember Eric Carle books as a kid. But yet, when we looked at the copyright many were dated even before I was born. I only became aware of him once I had kids.

One of my favorite things about his books are that they’ve got that extra something. The firefly lights up, the click beetle clicks & the rubber ducky squeaks. My favorite extras are the simple black dots in the book Hello, Red Fox. The whole book is tricking your eyes. You stare at the green fox for x amount of time, then stare at the black dot on the next page & you will see a faint red fox. Amazing. Fun. Exciting. There are multiple animals & colors to try throughout the story. The kids love it.

Our Collage

The beginning of our fancy cereal box paint palette looked like this…

.. When we were done, it looked like this. We definitely had fun with this project.

We read that Eric Carle makes most of his collages out of tissue paper & paint. So, that’s what we did. Layer by layer the kids & I added paint to the tissue paper, using different stroke techniques. It was a bit difficult at first since the tissue paper rips so easily. But, we soon got the hang of it & enjoyed the craziness of this type of painting.

We decided to make a group collage. The base is a piece of white poster board. Farm Kid1 made the Santa and sleigh, Farm Kid2 made Rudolph & I was in charge of the background.

Farm Kid2, a kinder, had some trouble cutting the tissue paper. Farm Kid1, 8 years old, had an easier time.

Farm Kid2 also made this snail.

Farm Kid1 made these creatures.

This was such a fun project. And, we have left over painted tissue paper so we will get to do it again soon.

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