Multnomah Fall (4 Jul 2009)

4th of July was my first day in Oregon, but I didn't feel any problem of jetlag, I was totally abled to adjust my body clock to US time and woke up at the morning without feeling tired. This morning, my hubby SL made breakfast for me, which was a set of classic American breakfast, hotdog, fried egg and toast with jam, I felt kind of happy as I didn't eat SL-cook dishes since he left to US.

It was about ten after we had our breakfast and ready to start our journey, SL first brought me around in his residence community, by showing me around to gym room, swimming pool, leasing office and nearby train station, I planned to have some trip to Portland town at my second week.



Then we just departed to our selected viewpoints, Multnomah Fall and Portland Old Town, it took us around an hour to arrive to Multnomah Fall, we originally planned to stop by at Vista House as we could see the view from top there, but we gave up the plan due to road clsoed at the midway.

According to our guide book, it was suggested several viewpoints along Columbia River Gorge, Multnomah Fall and Mount Hood are two main locations, but we decided to split them for two trips as they are in different direction and long journey between two of them, also we didn't think we could do two hiking on the same day. Therefore, we chose to visit Multnomah first by this day.

Finally, we got to Multnomah Fall without any streets finding as SL did a lot of homework to print out the direction from Google Map, but there was full of crowd in Multnomah Fall until we couldn't find a parking at first and overshot the Fall, then we only found a space after we returned back to the parking area. At first, we really couldn't believe that would be so many people visited to Multnomah Fall, including a lot of local people, but I know this would be they family day due to precious July of 4th holiday.

Thereafter, we started our adventure immediately after we parked our car, I was feeling amazing to see the Multnomah Fall just right in front of it, it was so beautiful and breathtaking, I was amazed with the creator's work with a beatiful scenery there. According to our guide book, it tells us this is the fourth highest fall in US, but it is high enough to me, I couldn't imagine what would be the highest fall look alike, it might be a fortune if I could visit it in one day :D But, I think Multnomah Fall is really enough for this time.

Later, we just decided to do some sport by hiking up to the top of Fall with our Crocs slipper :P, please don't worry for us, it was enough for there as track wasn't too steep for us and it was good for walking. There is a one way route to the top of Fall by direction just provided at the viewpoint. While we were walking on the track, we talked a lot as we had been apart for two months, we were missing each other so much and we could hike together again, I was so happy to collect all our oldtime memory.







This i a view taken during Multnomah Fall hiking, the view on Columbia River Gorge, it was really a beautiful scenery and we could see its close image while we were on the way to and back from Multnomah Fall. Honestly, I like Oregon so much, here is a place so close to natural, it is really suitable for natural lover.





From the signboard, it said that is about 1 mile to the top, but we think it is more than that as we really walked a lot, but it was a pleasure trip and we still managed to get there. Once I got to the top, I was passing by a rock to the pool area and this rock is really attacted me as I could feel some cold wind blow from there, it is just like a natural air-conditioner and keeps releasing some cold wind, therefore I stood there for some while as I felt hot after hiking and of course without forgeting to take a picture for this miracle rock :P



Then, we just took some walk and a short stay at the top of Multnomah Fall to enjoy beautifulness of natural there.











On the way back from the top, we saw a bride was walking into our direction, she was walking up to the Fall, I was so excited and took a picture for her, I think she was taking her pre-wedding photos there, well... Multnomah Fall is really a good choice for Wedding photos taken as it is so beautiful.



After down to the bottom, we just took a walk around the bottom and "played" a little with water at lower part of fall, water was so cold there until my feet couldn't bear with it too long :) Of course, I didn't forget to send a Multnomah Fall postcard to myself, I am a postcard collector, I like to send a postcard to myself whenever I visited to a place, I think this is the best souvenir for myself.



Sooner, we just directed to Portland Old Town after our lunch with homemade sanwich. Also, we stopped by a viewpoint along the highway to take some pictures of Columbia River Gorge, there is a beautiful scenery, but we could take a perfect piture for the view as it was too huge to capture it all from my little narrow scene digital camera.

Also, we saw a RV parked there, I couldn't help to take a picture for it as this is my first time so close to a RV :P





We arrived to Portland Old Town around 4pm and parked our car somewhere near to SW Pine Street, then we started our journey on feet. At first, I wanted to visit to Powell's Bookstore at West Burnside Street as our guide book claim this is the largest bookstore in US. While we saw the appearance of the bookstore from outside, we just didn't believe it could be called as the largest bookstore, but we were surprised with its size after entered to the store, it is really big with categorised into many different departments, it took us quite some time to go through all departments without any detail reading, it would be much longer if we wanted to do some reading there :)

After out from the bookstore, we just found that is another Powell's Bookstore for selling some technical books there, it isn't as big as the first one, but it is big enough to store all technical books there.



After that, we just took a walk aroun China Town in Portland, it was so quiet due to Independence Day holiday and I even couldn't find a suitable restaurant there, until we ended up to have our dinner at KFC at Hillsboro.



What's surprised me was KFC and A&W are combined store in US, where I could order food from KFC and have A&W drink together, anf there we tried the newly launched KFC grilled chicken, it was less oily than fried chicken.