Family Day of Boating

One reason I am in Oregon for the summer is to see my brother and his wife. When this blog first began back in 2005, I was staying in his motorhome in his driveway to see if I liked the full-time RVing life and get my own RV. 7 years later and over 5 years on the road, I’m back again to bring it full circle. If you happened to read my blog back then, you may have seen us boating on the Willamette River, going through the Portland locks, the Willamette Falls, and heard our chicken story.

We decided to repeat our favorite trip to some degree. Many things have changed so our trip had to change. The locks are now closed due to maintenance issues so we had to haul the boat to a boat ramp past them to start. We launched at Willamette Park. Unfortunately, the motor decided it did not want to work so after a false start, we had to pull the boat back out for my brother to inspect the motor and dry the spark plugs which had been flooded during the drive over. Back in the water again, he got it to start and off we went. It was overcast and looked like it might rain but we took our chances and were rewarded. It was a beautiful day on the water with warm coats on and no sun burning our eyes. We went to the Willamette Falls again and got closer than we ever had to them for pictures. They are flowing wildly right now and an awesome sight to see.

We got to go by the many beautiful houseboats tied up along the banks and the fancy houses on shore. I like the aluminum looking houseboat and the Italian villa house best. BTW, the really cool thing about houseboats is no property tax.

Next stop was for a picnic on the boat. We tied up at a public dock near where we had lunched years ago and the girls walked up and over to the KFC for a bucket of chicken and extras. It seemed like such a long walk last time but now it is very easy since they built a nice paved trail overlooking the river. We stopped along the way to read the interpretive signs and enjoy the view. Back at the boat, we laid out everything on the ice chest and dived in for a hardy meal.

Now satisfied, we drove the boat under the many bridges in Portland. We gawked at the large ships tied up at the docks, a fancy yacht, the floating seafood restaurant, the submarine docked at OMSI museum, and the waterfront parks. The bike/pedestrian trail is quite interesting with it’s bridges and floating deck. There’s a lot of floating debris around there so be careful. We managed to pick up a tree branch on our motor but it didn’t hurt anything.

There were plenty of fishermen out on the water too and some water skiers. The kayakers were out and about. We saw a couple of fellows standing on what looked like surfboards with paddles. One had his dog with him. Seemed silly to us.

The sun came out at the end of the day as we were heading in. I don’t know if it was that little bit of sun or rays breaking through the clouds but we got a bit sunburned so don’t forget to use sunscreen no matter what kind of day you boat. Do as I say and not as I do.

For more pics click here.