Scenes From Our Columbia River Cruise on American Harmony

A cruise is a great way to see the Pacific Northwest!

We visited Oregon, Washington, and Idaho during a 7-day Columbia & Snake Rivers cruise with American Cruise Lines on their modern river ship, American Harmony.

The cruise began in Clarkston, Washington, and went down the Snake River (and through three locks at three dams along the river) to the Tri Cities of Richland, Kennewick, and Pasco. I should also mention that we booked the 2-night pre-cruise package that featured one of the best excursions of the whole trip: a jet-boat excursion up the Snake River through Hells Canyon.

From the Tri Cities we cruised down the Columbia River where there was a tremendous amount of hydroelectric power generation at several dams as well as numerous wind turbines in the surrounding hills.

We stopped at Hood River, Oregon where there were dozens of wind surfers and kite surfers taking advantage of a windy part of the Columbia Gorge. All along the way, there were numerous freight trains and passenger trains visible along both the Oregon and Washington sides of the river... especially in Stevenson, Washington, where we had the best train sightings of all. From Stevenson we were also able to take a quick bus ride over to Multnomah Falls... an incredibly beautiful sight!

The ship intentionally ran aground at a beach in Kalama, Washington, so that the passengers could board busses for a trip to see Mount Saint Helens... the site of a huge volcanic eruption in 1980. I've been wanting to visit Mt St Helens ever since we moved to Washington last year... and this cruise offered the perfect opportunity.

We also visited Astoria, Oregon, which sits near the spot where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean. Many ships travel across the Pacific from Asia and enter the Columbia River at Astoria. The tremendous power of the flow of the Columbia River meeting the even more powerful forces of the Pacific Ocean creates one of the most dangerous places in the world for ships and boats. Hundreds of shipwrecks have occurred in this area, which is known as "The Graveyard Of The Pacific". Of course, our cruise ship never went any further west than Astoria... keeping us a safe distance from the dangerous area where the Columbia meets the sea.

On the very last day of the cruise we had a delightfully peaceful day of sailing the Columbia River from Astoria to our final destination of Portland, Oregon.

This video lets the scenery do the talking... giving you views of the most scenic parts of our journey without having to listen to a voiceover narration like you would in a typical travelogue. However, I'm going to be working on an entirely different video about our trip which will show even more than what you've seen here, and which will feature a voiceover to explain what was happening all along the way. Subscribe to my YouTube channel so that you don't miss that video when it comes out a week or two after this one.

Video Chapters:
0:00 Intro & Pre-Cruise
1:21 Sailaway & First Locks
4:15 Richland & The Tri Cities
6:39 Hood River
9:03 Multnomah Falls
10:11 Stevenson & Kalama
12:12 Mt St Helens
12:54 Astoria
14:00 Day 7
16:02 Booking With Caitlin

If you're interested in booking a cruise with American Cruise Lines, or with any cruise line at all, feel free to contact my travel agent, Caitlin Gallagher.
www.ambrentravel.com
email: [email protected]

Financial disclosure:
American Cruise Lines invited me aboard American Harmony as their guest, at no charge. However, they had no control over the content of this video.

Music credits:
"Sleepy Jake" by Silent Partner
"Pioneers" by Audionautix
"Moving On" by Wayne Jones
"Yard Sale" by Silent Partner
"Vanity Reprise" by Leviathe
"Rollin" by Lauren Duski
"As We Go" by The 126ers
"Tonto" by Silent Partner
"Back To Portland" by Track Tribe
"Stranger Danger" by Francis Preve
"Pioneers" by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Artist: http://audionautix.com/