Playin' catch up (not to be confused with ketchup)

I have a few nice photos that I have not got around to posting yet.  One of the reasons we like this park so much is that we get to see a lot of river traffic.  As you may know, Portland is the biggest deep water, freshwater port on the west coast of the USA. It is popular with ship companies, because the freshwater tends to kill off some of the saltwater organisms that attach themselves to the hull of a ship, while it is at sea.

In addition, Portland is a terminal for most of the products of the Columbia River Basin. These include grain and forest products, among many others. Portland is also a port of entry for many products from foreign countries, including automobiles.  There are huge receiving lots for new cars at the port near the confluence of the Columbia and Willamette rivers.

So, we get to see a lot of ships going up and down the river, while we are vacationing here.  Below are a few shots of two of them:

The two ships in the above pictures passed more or less right in front of the park, although, thanks to the large class A motor home parked between us and the river, I was unable to get a photo of that. (Not that I am bitter.)

Last evening, as I was preparing to grill some pork ribs for dinner, I looked out the window and saw the scene below.

The interesting thing about the photo is not the tug pushing a couple of barges, although that is more of the commercial river traffic I referred to above. Notice the bright light on the hill in the right hand side of the photo.  This is apparently a reflection of the setting sun off of the window of a building. Although I don't like to have to offer disclaimers for my work, I have to tell you that the light from that reflection was much more intense (almost blinding) than it appears in the photo.