Day 3 includes yet another house in the Portland area. The house is listed in the National Registry of Historic Places, but that’s not why most people visit the house. The house is now a museum, the rooms turned into galleries.

If you enjoy natural science then you will adore this museum. If that’s not your thing, then you’ll be really bored here. It really is a museum of pretty much only rocks & minerals.

Technically, it’s called the Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks & Minerals. But, who’s going to say all that? We just call it the Rice Rock Museum or even the Rock Museum.

The home turned museum was built in 1952 by rockhounds, Richard & Helen Rice.

Right out front is a large quartz piece found in Arkansas.

Main Building

The Rainbow Gallery is one of our favorites.
Top: In normal light the minerals aren’t all that wowing…
Bottom: … But, wait a few seconds and the lights go out. Then, they cycle through both shortwave & longwave florescent lights. The minerals react differently to the varying wavelengths. They seem to glow.

Top: A visual representation of the hardness scale of minerals.
Bottom: The kids can even test the hardness scale themselves.

Also on display are examples of how minerals are used in our everyday lives.

Synthetic Bismuth from Germany
To be honest, I have know idea what that means, but I thought it was super cool.

The lady on the left is carved from jade. The piece on the right is agate & from Beijing.

Mt. Hood Aurora Borealis carved from contra luz opal by Thomas Harth Ames.

Dennis & Mary Murphy Petrified Wood Gallery

Carved Lewis and Clark

Bottom Left: The green stuff is Pyromorphite. Found in France.
Bottom Right: Wulfenite. Found in Arizona.

Recently a letterbox was hidden at the museum. Of course, we had to find it.

The rare, beautiful & famous ‘Alma Rose’ rhodochrosite. From Colorado.

Cut gems

Northwest Mineral Gallery

As you enter this building you are greeted by this huge opal filled thunderegg found in Oregon. The thunderegg is Oregon’s state rock.

Mesolite. Found in Washington

Another good sized Thunderegg. These rocks are dull on the outside, but beautiful inside.

These thundereggs are about fist size, a more typical size.

Oregon’s state gem, sunstone.

I loved these 3 paintings showing the process of a petrified forest.
Top: “Before Petrification: A forest, including fallen logs is depicted. Volcanoes are erupting in the distance. A lake separates the forest from the volcanoes, and the lakes water cools the lava.”
Middle: “During Petrification: Logs are buried under lava (basalt) and a top layer of soil has developed, implying a long passage of time since burial. The overlying basalt and soil create anaerobic environment preventing the wood from decomposing. Silica rich water seeps down through the soil and basalt to the wood and precipitates microcrystalline quartz (agate/chert/jasper) and/or opal. Other minerals/elements in the water (eg iron) cause the coloration.”
Bottom: “After Petrification: A new landscape exists and erosion has now exposed the now petrified wood to the surface.”

Outside

Left: There is a huge rock pile outside. The kids each got to pick one to take home.
Right: Farm Girl was sweet and gave me her rock to put around our pond. It’s sitting next to a love rock.

My kids love this Rock Museum. We’ve visited it a few times and I’m sure we’ll visit it again.
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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After visiting Bonneville Dam we drove a very short distance to the Bonneville Fish Hatchery. It is on Tanner Creek, close to where it empties into the Columbia River. This is also the location where Lewis and Clark stayed on April 9, 1806. The last time we were at the hatchery was in 2007, on our way back from Idaho. It certainly was time to see it again.

This hatchery is Oregon’s largest & has been around for over 100 years. They hatch Coho Salmon, Chinook Salmon, and Steelhead for release in the Columbia River. Some young fish are also sent to other hatcheries.

The hatchery is managed by Oregon Fish & Wildlife & is part of the Bonneville Dam Historic District.

REARING PONDS

SPAWNING BUILDING

Spawning takes place during the fall. We visited the hatchery in the spring, so nothing was happening here. We did watch a video on the spawning process at the hatchery. The video was a bit graphic, but very informative. The part that I remember most is fertilization of the salmon egg. Many eggs from females are held in a bucket. The sperm from the males have been collected in a cup. The sperm cup is then dumped into the bucket of eggs. Voila, fertilized fish eggs.

STURGEON VIEWING & INTERPRETIVE CENTER

Inside the building you can view Herman, the Sturgeon. Honestly, I’m not sure if Herman was out the day we visited. This was the largest sturgeon we saw and I’m not positive it’s him. Herman is more than 70 years old & over 10 feet long. I don’t think this guy was quite that long. Either way this one was fun to watch.

A few other fish were swimmin’ along with the sturgeon.

We also viewed the sturgeon from outside, looking down into their pond.

This was a fun place to take my animal loving children. I’m glad they got to see conservation efforts at work.

One of these years, I’m going  to have to make a point to visit the hatchery in the fall to watch the spawning.

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