Field trip: Bonneville Dam and Fish Hatchery

A few weeks ago Daddy took half a day off and we went up to see the Bonneville Dam and Fish Hatchery about an hour and fifteen minutes from us. It's a nice drive in the gorge along the Columbia river.

We saw how the fish ladder works for Salmon to swim back upstream, and we saw them from down below too where there was a viewing window.

 This whole place was pretty amazing just to watch the water flowing.

We walked all around the visitors center and there were some nice benches to sit on, and some viewing up on the top floors.

We got lucky to catch the guy before he closed up the powerhouse visitor area. We got to go inside and hear the big turbines that generate power.

They had some nice murals painted in the stairwells, like the fish swimming up the ladder in the river, we were swimming up the stairs. It was pretty cute.

The force of the water coming out of the dam's spillway was amazing to watch. See all that whitewater!?

After the dam, we walked around the fish hatchery. The boys saw this truck with a picture of fish on the side. That's how they transport all those fish to the local ponds to re-stock them.

The ponds were beautiful. All these fish expected food from us. We didn't have quarters to feed the machine, so we just watched them.

More fish!

This guy was huge! 

On the way home we were going to stop and hike at a trail right across from the dam entrance, but it turned out to be a fee park. We decided to try it another day, and drove down to check out Multnomah falls on the way. We didn't hike to the top of the falls, but we did make it to the bridge.

It was a nice field trip day with the family. The boys loved checking out the dam and the fish hatchery. We do live in a pretty beautiful place!