This cozy little “first-come-first-served” state park is our very favorite in the Columbia Gorge and we decided to stop in for a couple of days as we headed home from the family reunion in Boardman.

Patricia has a great blog post with some very nice waterfall shots – check it out HERE.

Visited a few waterfalls and found a few geocaches:

Peanutbutter #2
Mile Marker 27
We Love Highway 14: It’s a What? I Don’t See It!
I See It!! I See It!!
Oregon’s Crown (Point) Jewel

Time for the annual reunion on the Columbia River at Boardman ….. and Patricia’s birthday! The river wasn’t as rough this year and brother Bruce and spent some time out in the kayaks. He tried some fishing while I paddled out to a channel marker where an osprey pair let me know I was not welcome near their nest!

Patricia's Gluten-Free Chocolate Birthday Cake

Mom giving portion size instructions!

By far, several days in the Columbia Gorge were the highlight of May. We’ve explored it several times for a couple of days at a time but this time was different. Pat was flying out of PDX to NYC for over a week and this provided a chance to spend time hiking and geocaching at both ends of her trip.

This video shows highlights of the longest hiking day of the trip…..

After picking Pat up from the airport and making a quick trip back home, we spent the long Memorial Day weekend back here.

Had a great time! Managed to find enough hiking caches to complete the requirements for the Columbia Gorge Hiking/Caching Challenge (30 hiking caches from a specific list). Now I see there is a sequel challenge requiring 75 hiking caches from that same list! Another excuse to come back! This trip leaves me with 53 of those caches accomplished.

Brought the trailer to Ainsworth State Park in the Columbia Gorge for the weekend to meet up with a couple from Scotland! – one a photographer, one a geocacher!

Explanation needed here! Patricia had recently joined an online community of photographers where they maintain their daily photo journals. Check out her journal HERE. She began corresponding with one of these community members from Scotland and discovered they were planning a trip to the United States and in particular, the Portland area! Well, it turns out her husband is an avid geocacher! They were coming to Portland partially because they wanted to attend a geocaching event at Cascade Locks. We decided to meet up at the event.

It was very fun meeting them. We walked around the park looking for geocaches and visiting for quite some time. Very nice people.

We also were able to hike to several falls for photo ops and geocaches while camping in one of our favorite places. Triple Falls was especially picturesque!

Triple Falls

One very cool cache I found was Rock of Ages. This is the second incarnation of the original Rock of Ages I found three years ago. Same lung-busting hike – same breathtaking view! Worth it both times!