First Visitors & Horsetail Falls

My brother, sister-in-law, and nephew just left this morning for Ohio after spending the better part of the last week with our family here in Portland. The visit was awesome and we had a lot of fun. It was good to have family here. My nephew is really, really cute and it was the first time since his birth 15 months ago that we really got to spend an extended amount of time with him.

My brother and sister-in-law were excited to come to Portland and wanted to do a variety of things. And so we did. The boys went to a Portland Timbers game. We visited Mt. Hood, The Gorge, Cannon Beach, and downtown. We tried to give them a little piece of all the different things to do here. I think they had a good time. I know we all did.

Some shots of Cannon Beach:

On our way to the Gorge we stopped at a place called the Overlook. It was high up on a hill overlooking the Columbia River Gorge. It was pretty.

On the last day of their visit Bob planned a trip out to the Gorge, but more specifically Horsetail Falls. My sister-in-law wanted to see some water falls before she left and this is the place to go in order to accomplish that goal. Multnomah Falls is nearby as well as Oneonta Falls. (Which Bob and I are going to go back to tomorrow because the only way to reach the falls is by walking up through the river and I am so excited to explore this trail.)

I love the Columbia River Gorge. It is the only place that I feel at peace out here in Oregon. I feel settled when I am in the gorge and I am not itching to get on to the next location or go back to the one I came from. I felt this same feeling sitting on top of Multnomah Falls when we visited there several weeks ago. As I walked this rocky trail I finally felt a feeling of contentment. A small voice came to me with the words: THIS is what I came here for. This is what makes moving around worth it.

I miss New Mexico. Still. And I am coming to the conclusion that the ache of missing it will not go away anytime soon - if not ever. It will always be a sacred place to me.And a big piece of my heart will always reside in those mountains and in that desert. And so instead of wishing the feeling would go away because it hurts a bit I am going to instead try and choose to honor that feeling and to be thankful that I feel such sadness and longing over a place because it means that I have found a place on this earth where my soul feels at rest. Not everyone can claim that. And so, even though I live 1600 miles away from Las Cruces and I miss it so much, I am going to do my best to make the most of the time I have here because there is beauty here. And there are places that do touch my soul here. It is my job to seek out those places and visit them as much as possible because someday (sooner rather than later, I think) this whole adventure will be just a memory and we will be living in another state in another part of the country.

Here is a glimpse of the trail that we did hike yesterday. It is called Horsetail Falls. The pictures Bob took do not do it justice. It is beautiful and magnificent and it reminds me that there has to be a God because who/what else could create something so wonderful and inspiring?

To give you an idea of how big the falls really are. Those two specs of people on the right of this photo are Andy and Elizabeth. They are really not that far from where we are standing.

Josh making his trademark sign that he and his buddy Marcos made up.

This section of the waterfall is actually different than in the pictures above. (With the exception of the one Josh is in right above this photo.) This part of the falls we actually had to hike .8 miles to get to.

Standing below the water fall. Surrounded by pine trees, mountains, rocks, and these waterfalls. Pretty amazing. It was here in this spot that I felt that leaving New Mexico was worth it. There is a peace and a beauty in the Columbia River Gorge that I cannot explain. I could build a tiny log cabin here and spend a good portion of my days in this setting.