Pictures from our trip

I was just thinking about giving this a title of "slide show", and it occurred to me that while my kids know what slides are, I'm not sure they've ever seen an actual slide show... you know, the l-o-n-g slide show, when slides cost a fortune, and after every trip, you had to get your money's worth, and friends and family often politely would sit through a very long dark evening of that click, click, click, as the tray turned.  Digital photos have really changed the way we all take and share pictures.  It's so amazing how things have changed.  I now get to share vacation pictures with people I've never met (bwahahah!). 

But seriously, I really did, and do love seeing pictures.  Maybe it's because I'm really visually inspired, curious about the world, and it's a cheap way to travel!  I caught myself telling my husband, as I downloaded our trip pictures that I "only" took 60 pictures!  Not too long ago, that amount of pictures would have been financially impossible for us.  It's a wonderful world!  Here's a few pictures of OUR wonderful world out here in Oregon.

I don't camp in the winter, but I've never passed up a chance to go for a walk or hike, especially in a place like this.

 

Even the puddles are pretty...

The drive home from Portland, is one of the most beautiful drives in the country (IMO), up the Columbia River Gorge, East on Interstate 84.  The river is on one side, and these moss-covered rock cliffs jut up on the other side.  They're covered with dense forest and punctuated with strings and ropes of waterfalls for miles and miles.

But on the East side of the gorge (which is in the Cascade Mountain Range), the land opens up, and dries out, the sky gets blue, the sun comes out, and when the landscape starts to look like this, we know we're getting close to home...