Today Trish did tons of cooking for the three day holiday set that begins tonight.  Trish insisted that instead of watching the kids, I wire a meter into our breaker box so that we would know how much power we’ve used when we visit people:

…Or maybe not.

In the afternoon, we decided to visit Portland’s famous Powel’s book store.  On the way, we visited the old synagogue building as well as the townhouse we lived in before moving to New York.  The four row houses pictured were all occupied by members of the Synagogue.  Ours was second from the left:

After we returned, I went for a brief bike ride.  It was nice to see Beaverton and TV highway again.  Here are the stats:

See you after Shabbos!

In the morning, we continued heading West towards Portland.  We briefly visited Marina Park in Cascade Locks, where our son and I went to look at the historic locks used to get sternwheelers past the falls on the Columbia.  Meanwhile, Trish put ice on our daughter’s forehead where she had been hit by the chain of a tire swing when she was pushed a bit too hard.

We next went to the fish hatchery at Bonneville Dam.  Here, millions of eggs are harvested from salmon and trout and grown into fish that are released into the river to maintain Oregon’s commercial and recreational fisheries:

Next we went to visit Bonneville Dam itself.  The locks were closed to visitors this time of year, so we couldn’t see the ships raised up and through the locks on their way upstream.  We did get to tour the massive generator room that contributes to the hydropower that supplies 68% of Oregon’s power needs.  We also saw the fish ladder that allows the migratory salmon to get around the dam and back to their stream of origin for spawning:

In the fish counting area under the fish ladder, we saw lampreys clinging to the glass:

Quite a few fish of all sizes went by as we watched:

Continuing west, we visited Multnomah Falls.  It was just a quick stop, so we didn’t hike to the top:

After that, we continued west and ended our day at the synagogue we used to attend before moving to New York, Kesser Israel.  We will be parked here for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New year, which begins Wednesday night and runs into Shabbos.  The congregation has a new building in a different part of town, but we look forward to seeing many of our old friends and reintroducing them to our son who was only a few weeks old when we moved away.

We drove 55 miles today.   See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.