When you take an ocean cruise (on a BIG ship) you have sea days. That’s a day when you don’t stop in a port. Usually, the ship has lots of things for you to do on board. Well, yesterday was the river equivalent of a sea day, so I will call it a river day.
We had three locks to pass through on our way up the Columbia, so it meant it would take a little while to go east. I believe if there were no dams and locks on this river, you could go from Astoria to Clarkston (where we disembark) in about two or three days. But there are locks and dams, so why not embrace them the way the ship did yesterday, as we passed through the largest of the locks on the Columbia, the John Day Lock.
I was up early to shoot our first lock passage before dawn (and to work on yesterday’s post) and got a single photograph of that lock. It’s quite a gritty-looking photo, don’t you think?
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- We creep through our first lock in the dark.
From that point on until the sun rose, it was just a smooth sail upriver. When the sun finally gave me the golden hour, I was out with my camera to get some shots. I really like these, so…if you click the first shot, you can scroll through using your arrow keys or by swiping. And PLEASE… don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…And take a second to blow up the last one because it might be the second-best panoramic shot I have taken…ever.
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- The sun creeps over the eastern horizon.
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- Just pretty sunrise shots
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- So I won’t have any special captions for them.
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- Just sunrise on the Columbia River
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- Which yesterday was golden
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- The landscape changed as the light changed.
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- Evidence is here.
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- Traffic on I-84 that runs alongside the river
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- On the way we passed Marydale Museum…
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- And Stonehenge.
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- Barges went by.
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- And one of my best panoramic ever. I LOVE this shot. Make sure and click on it to enlarge it so you can see what I mean.
After my early morning photo shoot, it was off to breakfast and then back up to take pictures as we passed through the John Day Lock, the largest on the river. It is what is known as a guillotine lock, as the doors don’t open to the side, but lift into the air.
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- We are entering the massive lock.
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- Now inside, the door is massive.
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- Looking back as the door closes. You can see Mt. Hood in the background.
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- Talk about huge. This door is holding back an entire river.
While we were going through the lock, the crew started a dance party. I love taking photos of people (it dates back to my years in the yearbook industry) so I just stood at the rail above them and shot photos. I took more than 140 but here’s the best.
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- From line dancing to the Macarena…
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- The crew was…
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- Dancing up a storm.
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- Even our historian/lecturer was getting in the spirit.
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- Lots of great moves out there.
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- And lots of great faces.
After the party, it was back to exiting the lock and heading further upriver, where I could get more photos. Here are some of those.
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- We are now at the level of the upper river after the lock as filled.
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- Looking across the John Day dam.
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- Behind us the huge guillotine door.
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- Next to us a fish ladder.
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- The dam and lock were built by the Army Corps of Engineers.
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- And thousands of gulls appreciate the place they created for them to perch.
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- The dam in better light.
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- The birds fly off as we come up next to them.
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- A barge passes to our left.
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- With a tug pushing it.
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- The wind turbines dotted the tops of the ridge all along the Washington side.
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- Mike and I have our annual shoot off.
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- There goes that barge.
That was about it for the photos. Soon after I took the last set, we left the Columbia Gorge and entered the flat, arid, desert-like landscapes of Eastern Washington. Last night during dinner, in the dark, we transited the last lock leading into Lake Umatilla. It was dark, and I was eating, so no photos of that ?.
Today, we are docked in Richland, part of Washington’s Tri-Cities (along with Kennewick and Pasco). We have a full-day excursion to Pendleton, an Old West town located just south of here in Oregon. Should be fun. More about that tomorrow.
Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters. ? Norman Maclean,
The golden hour was really rock’n it. The pana is great but doesn’t catch me quite as much as the one I got hanging here. :). Who is Norman Maclean when he’s at home. Love locks.