Multnomah

  

A day trip to Multnomah Falls gave us a chance to hike up to the top and splash for a little bit in the river before the falls. It was a fairly busy day on the trail, but thinned out as we neared the top.  Being so used to the high daily temperatures of the Yakima area, I forgot that the weather would probably be different once we got further into Oregon and did not pack extra sweaters.  Silly me!  The girls made do passing a jacket back and forth depending on who was cold at any moment, mostly giving the jacket to little Rosie-pie and insisting they were not cold.  Sweet girls.  

After a picnic lunch and the hike, we headed a little further down the road to Portland, where we parked at a park and ride and took the train downtown, just a block or two away from Powell's bookstore.  I was able to find some of our school books for the coming year and a few fun books too, then we grabbed dinner at a food truck on the walk to the place we needed to get back on the train to our car.  It was a fun adventure (thanks to my brave husband who pushes me to trust his way of doing things even though I like to have everything carefully mapped out in advance) and way nicer than trying to find parking downtown and then feeding the meter repeatedly!  The drive back was late and we were tired the next day but I enjoyed the extra knitting time in the car to work on Millie's Sorello.  We're also reading aloud Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins so there was some of that too!  
I am looking forward to another little day trip tomorrow, this time nearer than the last, and I hope to read and knit and relax and splash in the lake and play games and picnic restfully.  I'm trying hard to finish up Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher:  The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward S. Curtis by Timothy Egan.  Last year when I read The Boys in the Boat I realized I really enjoy historical biographies, which makes perfect sense with my past love of reenacting and history coming to life.  So when I saw Short Nights in the bookstore and flipped through it and saw the stunning (and some familiar) photography that was included, I tucked it away in my mind to look for when I had time.  It jumped out at me from the library shelf a few weeks ago and I grabbed it.  I am finding it very interesting, not even having realized that Curtis was from the Pacific Northwest.  If you don't know who he is, you can google historic pictures of Native Americans and most of what you see will be his work.  He was prolific, trying to capture images of the way of life of all the tribes on the North American continent before it changed drastically. He largely tried to keep his work out of the realm of politics, but as I think is inevitable, once he began to realize the level of injustice and cruelty that had been enacted on the tribes over and over again, his work began to reflect that frustration and sorrow.  I find it interesting from so many angles - Native America (of course), local and national and tribal history, and photography.  


I love that picture of me and the girls up there.  It's nice to catch one of those every now and then.