Fun with Family

We were fortunate to have beautiful weather for our family weekend get-together. It's always hit or miss in the Pacific Northwest at this time of the year. We expected good weather Friday and Saturday. Sunday was a gift. When I left you on Friday, I had bread rising in the kitchen. I wasn't able to accomplish the fancy scoring I was hoping for, but the loaves turned out pretty anyway. One of these went home with Erik and Mae. We ate the other one...yes, all of it.

Shortly after those came out of the oven, it was time to head to our floating home for the weekend. It was a little confusing finding it since it wasn't well marked from the road. Once I got into the parking lot, hm, what to do here? I decided to cross here and head down that ramp. It led to the river, after all.

Through this wisteria archway...

key under the mat, just as expected, and voila! I was inside. This was the view from our living room.

I was the first one to arrive since we had to take separate cars. (I'll explain in a minute.) When Mike arrived, he wasted no time taking a seat in the shade.

Across from where he's sitting was this little floating greenhouse.

Right away our feathered friends showed up. This duck pair appears to live at the house full time, even though they are wild ducks.

Other friends included this Canada goose,

and about a dozen of his friends.

Also, this little one-legged seagull. Don't know how he lost his leg, but he seems to get along fine without it.

We were just above Willamette Falls. I'll say more about the falls in a bit. If you can't wait, you can click on that link to read more about it. But wait...what's that I see off to the right in that image?

Holy Smokes! I think it's "Nessy!"

The kids showed up later in the evening since Erik had to work. By then, the water was glass smooth.

We missed Matthew this trip since he had to spend the whole weekend moving. Such is life. Nevertheless, we had a lovely evening and dinner of lasagna, salad made from CSA veggies, homemade bread, and brownies for dessert.

Erik had to work the next day, and so we had a pretty quiet evening. Day is done.

When I awakened the next morning, the spray off the falls was glowing in the morning sunshine.

After Erik left for work, the Boat Captain launched the boat. The launch was on the other side of the river; and thus, the need for an extra car. He drove the truck and trailer over there and parked it while he got the boat into the water. Then, he drove the boat to our home and tied it up. Then, I drove him back to the launch to pick up the truck and trailer.

There's our little one-legged friend again.

For lunch, the Boat Captain took Mae and me out for a lunch cruise. There's our place in the image below. It's the largest of the row of homes there right in the middle of the image.

Okay, hang onto your hats, because here we go!

And no kidding about the falls. Every once in a while someone goes over the falls, and to my knowledge it is always fatal. Willamette Falls is the 2nd largest waterfall in North America by volume, and 17th largest in the world.

We went for quite a long ride. This section of the river is known as "The Narrows," where the channel is narrow and the river is deep.

There's the Canby Ferry, in operation since 1914. The specific vessel used has been replaced and updated several times, most recently in 1997. It is one of three remaining ferries on the Willamette River. You can read more about it at that link I've given you.

We rode all the way down to the Boone Bridge, which is one of the places where I-5 crosses the Willamette River.

Along the way we saw around half a dozen great blue herons and lots of ospreys. Here is an osprey nest, and you can just barely see the chick where I've indicated with the green arrow.

We ate lunch on the river and then headed back home. Mike and Mae had naps, and then Mae got the idea to walk to a nearby brewery and taste some of their beers. Do you remember this railroad crossing?

Well, stop, look, and listen here because the train came through fast and furious with a fair amount of frequency. (Pretty awesome alliteration.) We had to wait for the train to pass on this trip out. We stood no more than three feet away as it passed. Here's a video to give you some idea what it was like. If you can't see the video, then click right here.

Once we were free to pass, we walked just about three blocks to the brewery. Along the way, we saw wild blackberries in bloom.

Or...if you don't want to walk, you could catch my favorite bus line.

Just about five minutes away was Feckin Irish Brewing Company. What a humorous place this was.

They had a quite a few beer selections. That young lady at the taps is a social worker planning to return to nursing school this coming fall. I liked her right away.

Mae and Mike both had beers. I'm not much for beer, but I do loves me some hard cider. Mine was a hard apple cider this time around.

The brewery was housed in a warehouse, but there were a lot of things to look at. This is an arm wrestling table in the colors of the Irish flag.

Also, they had an ax-throwing game spot. Yikes!

When we got back home, Mae cooled her feet in the river along with some of her feathered friends. It was a little too cold for swimming, but nice for foot dipping.

By then, Erik arrived home from work. We'd ordered takeout Thai food for a dinner cruise on the river. And whaddaya know? Our shadow selves showed up just in time!

Mike and Erik relaxed for a bit.

And then we headed out for our dinner cruise. It was a nice warm evening.

Because we spent more than $50 on our Thai take-out, we were rewarded with this little IV bag of the restaurant's house chardonnay...for emergencies, you know.

After dinner, we headed back for a campfire on the deck. There was a bucket provided that we used to wet down the wooden deck surface, and then Mike lit it off.

Earlier in the day we'd learned that one of our neighbors was raising an orphaned duckling. They're hoping it will grow large enough and simply leave the "nest" one of these days. It had a plastic wading pool, and the board you see there is the ramp so that it can get into its pool for a swim. So cute.

While we sat by the fire, they gave it a heating lamp for the night.

And that was a very sweet end to a nice day.

When I woke up Sunday morning, there was a very pretty sunrise.

Erik decided the night before that we should go out for breakfast, and he chose a place in Oregon City that had several different Eggs Benedict dishes on the menu. The restaurant was busy, but it was just a short wait for a table.

Oregon City is a small historic town. Here's the tree-lined Main Street.

Just down the road was the Clackamas County Courthouse, and you know I love a good old courthouse. This one was built in 1937.

After a big breakfast, Erik took us on a tour of the area. He worked over here a while back, and so he knew some nice places to go, starting with this park...

where we could take a trail down to the river's edge. This is the Clackamas River.

And safety first. I must tell you all the ways you can die today, so be careful, and watch your step.

Also, we met this fellow as we walked along. He's a Shasta Swallow Tail.

Also, we saw this bat house. It appears a bird decide it would make a good house too.

One of the local residents had a tree with a face carved in it.

From there, we headed to another park (the name escapes me). This happens to be the confluence of the Willamette River (in the foreground) with the Clackamas River (behind).

There was some habitat restoration going on here, including this blooming lupine.

And there were plenty of Canada geese here with along with hundreds of goslings.

And this goose...it took me a while, but I finally figured out that this is a hybrid Canada/Greylag Goose. Apparently Canada geese can hybridize with several different varieties of geese.

From there, we headed to the overlook of Willamette Falls. The Willamette River is historically significant. Oregon City was the end of the Oregon Trail, and so there are a number of centuries-old abandoned structures along the river, including this complex at Willamette Falls. Here is a pano of the entire area.

Here's a bit of history about Oregon City.

There are currently plans in place to redevelop the area, and this will be a very worthwhile project. I'm hoping we'll live long enough to see it come to fruition. Here are a couple of explanatory signs.

Okay, so let's just take a look, and please mind your manners. Absolutely no missile throwing.

There are the falls in the image below.

To the right of where I was standing, it looks like this. And, yes, it's ugly. It was a hub of industry at one point in time, but these structures have been abandoned for some years now.

Straight ahead from where I'm standing is this:

And you can see that we are, indeed, just above the falls. I've indicated the location of our home in the image below.

And by then, my traveling companions were ready to fall into food comas, so we headed back to the house. When we arrived, our duck friends were snoozing on our deck.

The others took naps. I wasn't feeling a need for a nap, and so I worked on my stitching. It was nice sitting on the deck in the bright light working on this and watching the birds. There was an osprey nest across the river from here. We could hear the osprey, but we never saw it.

After everyone woke up, we went to another brewery that Erik was itching to try.

It turned out to be the land of the funny signs. They certainly had some clever ways of enticing folks driving by to stop in and have a brew.

They had so many beers, it was hard to choose just one. Mae ordered a couple of flights. Erik and Mike each ordered the same thing.

I had my usual hard cider...this time, limey ginger. It was yummy.

And after that, we headed back home to relax for our last evening there. We had leftover lasagna for dinner, and that was pretty much the end of the weekend. Yesterday morning, we checked out and came home. One more family get-together for the books. We had so much fun and enjoyed this floating home venue so much that we're probably going to do it again next year.

And now, we're at home. Kitties were fine. Matthew was in and out all weekend, and so they weren't really alone. Today I'm getting my monthly pedicure, but I'm also hoping to get some serious sewing time in. I'm hot sure how much time there will be because it's also a CSA pick-up day, and so I'll be doing that later this afternoon. I've been putting off grocery shopping and menu planning until I see what veggies are in our share. That can wait until tomorrow, however. For now...the flamingos are calling.