Tag Archives: Travel

Multnomah Falls

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I visited Multnomah Falls today while on a cruise of the Snake and Columbia Rivers. I have seen this waterfall in I don’t know how many pictures because it is rather photogenic, especially with the foot bridge that crosses in front of the upper portion of it. The area around the falls are rather pretty and what most people generally think of with the northwest. It is a 0.2 mile hike up from the first viewing area to the footbridge and not too bad of a hike.

Classic photo of Multnomah Falls with the footbridge across it in frame

Pool at upper portion

Upper falls

Fireweed near falls

Short stream between upper and lower waterfalls

View from pedestrian bridge of creek fall terminates into and viewing platform with Columbia River in background

Pendleton Underground

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As part of the cruise of the Columbia and Snake Rivers that I am on, today some of us went on an excursion to Pendleton, Oregon. The main purpose of the excursion was to tour an underground portion of Pendleton. They started building portions of the underground in the 1800s. Underground tunnels allowed them to safely carry gold and other goods from one location to another to prevent theft. Later many bars were below ground as well as businesses. We were shown an area where a Chinese man had a thriving business washing and ironing people’s laundry. There was an old shed of sorts that was well insulated to store ice for an ice cream parlor above. There was also of course the expected speak easy used during Prohibition.

I’ve taken a few underground tours before, similar to this one. This one felt somewhat disjointed. It covered numerous time periods. They also had some examples of things that weren’t actually underground, but I guess they needed to fill the area, and also show a little above ground history. However, it got somewhat confusing understanding what had and had not actually been underground.

Bar

Example of living area

Example of sleeping area and equipment used for trade

Groundwater pump and icemaking area used by well known butchers

Speak easy with moth balls hanging from ceiling to overpower smell of alcohol

Lewiston and Clarkston

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Today I started a cruise down the Snake then Columbia River. The cruise started in Clarkston, Washington. Clarkston is seemingly a twin city with Lewiston which is on the other side of the Snake River in Idaho. I have been planning this trip for close to two months, and it was not until night before last while staying Lewiston before joining the cruise group that I made the connection of the city names. Lewiston and Clarkston. Lewis and Clark. Almost everything in the area pays tribute to Lewis and Clark and their expedition. Why it took me so long to make the connection of the city names I have no idea. Anyway, Lewiston and Clarkston are at the confluence of Clearwater River in Idaho and the Snake River which forms the boundary between Idaho and Washington. The area is interesting geologically and geographically and pretty in its own way. There is a lot of columnar basalt in the area, which I rather love seeing. There is a overlook in North Lewiston, which provides nice views of the confluence.

Confluence of Clearwater and Snake Rivers

Snake River into Hell’s Canyon

Confluence of Clearwater and Snake Rivers

Hanford Reactor B

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Yesterday I went on what is pretty much a nerd tour of Hanford Reactor B. Hanford is the Department of Energy facility where they made plutonium to make nuclear bombs, and Reactor B was the first reactor built during World War II to make plutonium. It is now a National Historic Landmark. The tour included a long bus ride to the site, which gives you a better understanding of just how big Hanford is. The tour then includes several hours to wander around the building, and several presentations by docents. I still can’t quite get over the fact that the public can tour a building where they used to make plutonium, which is rather radioactive and toxic.

The science and engineering behind the facility was impressive, and I also enjoyed looking at 1940s era technology and signage. I don’t if it was that era, or the facility, or what, but there were some fun signs all over the place. There were also some hidden historical signs, like all the clocks were stopped at 10:48, which was time on the night of September 26, 1944 when the reactor achieved fission for the first time. I don’t know why, but I was amused that almost every room had a “broom” station, which were pegs on the wall where a broom and dustpan were hung. I think I only saw one room where there was actually a broom in its proper station. I guess they do less sweeping now, or they have moved onto vacuum technology.

I really appreciated that you could wander around and spend your time looking at everything. Most of the areas have decent signage to indicate what you are looking at, although the engineer that I am, I would prefer perhaps a bit more detail. My one criticism of the tour was that they completed glossed over the amount of environmental contamination created at Hanford. In an intro video we watched before taking the tour, they briefly mention that waste was buried to be dealt with later. The docent at one point said they are cleaning up the site, which is an understatement. I know enough about the site to feel like they just didn’t want to admit the contamination they caused. Signs of remediation are present in the building. There were plenty of pipes that obviously had asbestos, and the pipes had clearly been abated to encapsulate the asbestos, so it would not become airborne and thus a hazard. There were dosimeters on the walls everywhere, which were clearly been analyzed frequently.

Hanford Reactor B

Front Face where fuel rods were loaded into reactor, which is behind the front face

Warning Do Not Introduce Heat Source into any opening in reactor unit

Front face close up fittings

For security reasons, it was called the metal loader instead of uranium loader

Valve Pit Room; notice in lower right, tops have been removed from access openings; tops were removed at Russian inspectors’ request to prove no water was going through pipes as part of treaty to reduce nuclear weapons

Exhaust Fan

Wall of something in control room

Control Room, telephone switchboard equipment was used to monitoring equipment

Control Room where operator sat

Control room board with warning “Caution: bumping panel may cause scram”

Fuel Storage Basin, there used to be water underneath the wooden boards where the used fuel was stored temporarily 

Wall of old signs

Old sign (my favorite)

Old Quebec City

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I have been in old Quebec City for three full days, and it has been a lovely visit. Old Quebec is compact and walkable with the exception of the fact that old Quebec is really just a series of stairs and slopes. Thus something may be just four blocks away, but it is also the equivalent of eight stories higher, so plan accordingly. The old town is surrounded by its original fortification walls, with a citadel at the highest point. Many of the streets are cobblestone, and most of the buildings are clearly original.

Montmorency Falls

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Just outside of Old Quebec City, (as in 15 minutes by car or 40 minutes by public bus), is Montmorency Falls, or Chute Montmorency, which I prefer. The falls are beautiful, and there is a park around it. There is a pedestrian bridge across the top of the falls, and a cable car from the top to the bottom. There are boardwalks at the bottom, and they appear to be building more or possibly renovating the old ones, as currently you can only access one side plus a boardwalk across the river at the base of the falls.

View of the falls from the boardwalk across the river flowing from the falls

View of the falls from the boardwalk across the river flowing from the falls

View of falls from boardwalk near base of falls

Rainbow formed in mist at base of falls, photo taken from observation walk near top of the falls

Closeup of east side of falls showing geological layers and folding

 

Crossing pedestrian bridge above falls

Crossing pedestrian bridge above falls; downstream and outflow into St. Lawrence River

Québec City Sightseeing Cruise

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Québec City (Ville de Québec) sits on the St. Lawrence River, which is (surprisingly to me) a huge river. A company offers short sightseeing cruises along the river that go as far as the bridge to Orleans Island (l’Ile d’Orleans). Right where the boat turns around, you can get pretty good views of Montmorency Falls (la chute Montmorency). [My knowledge of French is pretty much limited to words from ballet and Louisiana and words that are similar to my rudimentary Spanish and Latin knowledge. I am starting to enjoy specific French words like “chute.”] The cruise also provided lovely views of the port of Québec City (Port de Québec), l’Ile d’Orleans, and Lévis, which is across the river from Québec.

Royal Battery and old Quebec

Canada Coast Guard ice breakers

old Quebec City

Montmorency Falls

Orleans Island bridge

Orleans Island

Large ships headed west on the St. Lawrence River

Port of Quebec

National Assembly of Quebec

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I have noted before that I want to see all the U.S. state capitols. I am in Quebec, so I decided to see its provincial capitol and add that to my list. They call their capitol the National Assembly of Quebec. It consists of one chamber. They used to also have the Legislature Council, which was akin to the British House of Lords. I am sure it was explained on the tour why and when they got rid of it, but I missed it. In any event, the current capitol is the fourth one. I have noticed a theme with U.S. state capitols that they are not in the original buildings. In many cases, they need a bigger building, but in many cases, the capitol burned down. Quebec has a combination of those reasons. The first one was too small, and the second and third buildings burned down. The current building also was a bit too small evidently as they added onto it. We only saw a small portion of the building, and the new entrance for visitors is underground and then connects to a new building, which connects to the old building.

The building is very French in style. Inside, there is symbolism one would expect, including French and British. The chambers are modeled after the British House of Commons and House of Lords. My favorite bit of trivia I learned was that the National Assembly room was originally green like the House of Commons, but when proceedings started being televised, the politicians didn’t like the way they looked with all the green in the room, so the room was repainted blue with all other accents changed from green to blue. The blue works well with the Quebec flag, but it wasn’t changed because of the flag. It was changed because politicians didn’t think they looked good with a green background. The two chambers are mirror images, except the color, artwork, and furniture. They wouldn’t let us take photos in the National Assembly room, which really disappointed me. They had photos of each room outside, so I am including a photo of their photo.

National Assembly of Quebec, circular stairs was original entrance to building

Original entrance to the building with English coat of arms on the wall with maple leaves

French coat of arms with maple leaves, along the ceiling are an English rose, Scottish thistle, and Irish shamrock

Entrance to restaurant in new part of building

Stained glass in stairwell

Legislature Council room which is now used as a hearing room, conference room, or for presentations

Photo of National Assembly room; they wouldn’t let us take photos inside

Stairwell to tower

Tunnel connecting new entrance to original building with light art

Powerhouse Arts

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Powerhouse Arts is a new arts and fabrication studio and rental venue housed in a renovated power station in Brooklyn, New York, and they hosted an open house today through Open House New York.The building has been completed renovated, but they have left some of the graffiti on the walls from when the place was essentially abandoned, and squatters lived there. The facility now houses several different art studio areas like a ceramics area and print shop. It also has huge spaces that can be rented. The facility is right on the Gowanus Canal, and it has wonderful views of Brooklyn and Manhattan.

Powerhouse Arts located in an old power station

Former steam production area

Downtown Manhattan and the Gowanus Canal can be seen

Former turbine hall

Former turbine hall

Former turbine hall

Newly commissioned artwork in the Grand Hall

Graffitti in entrance hall

Google Maps Walking Adventure

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I use Google Maps all the time. It is really convenient, and for the most part it works well with various types of travel modes. I probably use it more for walking routes and public transportation than I do for driving. It is far from perfect, and it has a truly annoying habit of refusing to show public transport routes only without cars. It has an annoying habit of telling me to take a car to a subway station, which is just plain silly. You can tell it to give you a no car option, but you have to select that option every single time you use it on the phone. Still, it is useful.

There is a guided walk on Staten Island that I am interested in joining, so I used Google Maps to determine how I could get there on public transportation. Whenever I am in New York City, I always stay in the Penn Station area, so I mapped how to get to the starting point from Penn Station. Below is the route focusing on the Staten Island portion.

Google Maps route from Penn Station using public transportation

The route involves quite a bit of walking from the final bus stop to the walking tour location, and it did not seem like the quickest route. I noticed that the Staten Island Railway (SIR) has a station not too far from the tour location, and it looks like one of the stations was a shorter route, so I had Google route me from the ferry terminal, which is the terminal for the SIR.

Google Maps route using SIR

Google Maps obliged and routed me via SIR, but the route seemed even more circuitous. It routes me three stops past the closest one to a bus. It then takes me on the scenic route to the walking tour location. I tried then to get it to route me from the closest SIR station to tour location.

Google Maps route from Oakwood Heights Station

Google Maps really wants me to take a walking tour of Staten Island, I guess. This is clearly not the most direct route. I then tried to force it to take me on the more direct route by moving the route. Things just got silly at that point.

Google Maps route from Oakwood Heights Station after I tried to steer it to a more direct route

This clearly is an absurd route, and it also seems to be taking me on a tour of a golf course, which is probably not an actual walking route. I thought perhaps I was missing something, like a road that was not open or something, so I had it route me from the same starting to ending point but in a car.

Auto route

What do you know, it knows there is a direct route, but it just refuses to believe you can walk it. I played with it for quite a bit. I also used street view to try to figure out why it would not let me walk on the same street it would let me drive.

Google Maps route from Oakwood Heights Station to coffee shop

After much experimenting, I finally found that it would give me a direct walking route to a nearby coffee shop. I still don’t know why Google Maps will not let me walk directly on to where I want to walk. My best guess is that part of the walk does not have sidewalks. The route definitely does not involve some sort of freeway or similar where it would be dangerous for a pedestrian. However, the answer can’t be lack of sidewalks because a part of the route above does not have sidewalks either based on Google street view. Thus, I don’t know.

TL/DR: AI is not taking over the world yet, at least for navigation.