By Bob Van Leer

  (STEVENSON, WASHINGTON, April 17, 2005) - Today we went down and up the Columbia River doing sightseeing. Our ship, the Queen of the West, had docked for the night at Hood River and we boarded buses for the short trip to The Dalles to visit the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center.

   Surprisingly, there was no welcome of any kind for our ship. There was no delegation to greet us, or even a banner of welcome. The local chamber of commerce is dropping the ball. There are 104 passengers on the ship from 19 states. Some of them will be back to the Northwest and as a chamber member, I'd want to make them feel welcome and leave with a good opinion of Hood River. At other places where we have docked in the past, there were usually booths of merchandise for sale. And not many passengers leave empty handed.

  The discovery center is a treat. It is half about the Columbia Gorge and half about Wasco County. Lewis and Clark are featured this year. One of the displays was the supplies Lewis and Clark took on their voyage. They had interesting priorities. They took along 17 pounds of soap and five barrels of whiskey.

  The center is very well done except for the location. The Dalles is not exactly a population center. And, the center is located several miles from the freeway exit. It appears to me that the center is not going to get the amount of traffic it should.

  After leaving the center we went up the old highway to Rowena Point, a spectacular viewpoint opposite the mouth of the Klickitat River and then it was back to the ship at Hood River.

  After lunch the Queen sailed downstream to Stevenson, WA. There we docked and went back on the buses. First we went to Multnomah Falls for a look. Most of the guests have never seen the falls.
From there we were taken to Bonneville Dam, the first of the big Columbia River dams, completed in 1938. We went into the fish viewing station and were told only 80 chinook had been counted going through the dam that day. This time of the year there should have been many more.

  I asked about sea lions and was told one sea lion had made a number of passages through the fish ladder and a second was learning to. When our guide was asked how they could tell it was the same sea lion going through he said, "He has a number on his back".

  The guide said last year the mortality of salmon at the dam from sea lions was 2%. The year before that it was 1%, and the year before that it was a fraction of a percent.

  From the fish ladder we went to the powerhouse and were hit by a drenching shower. This is the first time we got wet. The weather is improving and the rest of the week looks good.

  We returned to the ship in time for dinner and again headed upstream. At about 10 p.m.we were locked through The Dalles Dam. The lock lifted us 90 feet to the 23-mile long Lake Celilo.

  The way the locks operate, our ship pulled in to the downstream end of the lock, which was empty. Then the lock gates closed behind us. The lock is filled with water, bringing us to the level of the lake. Then the lock gates in front of us open and we sail out into the lake.

  Tomorrow our ship will nose into the bank near Pendleton and the ship has a bow gangway that will drop down and we will walk off and board buses for the Pendleton Roundup grounds.