Days 4, 5, and 6

On Monday it rained here pretty hard so we decided it would be a great day to get some things done close to home. We went to the local Library and got our new cards and got a video and put some books on hold. We also got some shopping done. Not real exciting, but necessary.

Tuesday we had more fun. We called a couple that we met at church on Sunday and invited them to come with us to Beacon Rock. For those who don't know, Beacon Rock is the 3rd largest free-standing monolith in the world and it resides in the Columbia Gorge. On our way there we stopped at Bonneville Dam to see the fish hatchery and the giant sturgion. The sturgion was not as ugly as I remembered them being, probably because I have now seen more ugly fish than I had when I first went to Bonneville. We were able to take a minute at the trout pond and our new friend showed us how to reach down and put your hand under a trout and lift it as if to catch it. We tried a few times. Stephen almost had it. I didn't even come close. I did touch several of them, though.

After that we continued on to Beacon Rock. It really wasn't a hard climb at all. It is only about a mile and a half to the top. You follow some man-made switchbacks through most of it. The view from the top is amazing! Well worth the effort.

This is the view from the bottom.

And the view from the top.

Another view from the top.

Here we all are.

These are some of the switchbacks. I thought this was a neat view as we were coming back down.

Yesterday we went to the OMSI museum. They have a lot of dinosaur exibits and life science exibits. They have an IMAX movie, a submarine that you can take a tour of, a planetarium, ect. Stephen was doing service by manning a booth from 10-2 and I met up with him when he was finishing and then we explored the museum for a while. We spent quite a bit of time doing mind puzzles that they have spread throughout the place. It was a lot of fun.

We also went to a restored theater last night. It is a place that you can order dinner and eat while you watch a movie. We saw Iron Man again. We really like that movie. We ordered burgers; I had a cheeseburger and Stephen had a Chili Burger. They were delicious. It was a fun experience to eat real food while watching a movie. I really liked it.