Mike and Sandy liked their 2025 American Cruise Lines (ACL) trip along the East Coast, and even though Mike is a year older, did the ACL trip on the Columbia and Snake Rivers as an encore (pun intended). This trip was on the American Encore, a brand new 180-passenger ship. This cruise traveled from Clarkston, in Eastern Washington state, west to the Pacific Ocean. ACL is expanding fast, with 3 new ships built in Maryland entering service in 2026, and 3 more in 2027.
The cabins on the ACL ships are quite spacious, actually larger than the ones we usually booked for much longer cruises on Holland America ships. And off we went on the Snake River! We learned our way around the ship, and met lots of the staff. One surprise was our server in the dining room, who is from El Paso, Texas, where Mike grew up. Our after dinner entertainer was a singer from New York, with a very clever song-and-video tribute to Billy Joel.
While we were being fed and entertained that first night on the ship, we went through "Hell's Canyon" and past two dams and locks. And later, while we slept, we slipped past another dam, and by the next morning, we found ourselves docked at Richland, Washington.
Richland is the town adjacent to the "Hanford Site," which was one of three "secret cities" of the WW II Manhattan Project. (The other two were Oak Ridge in Tennessee, and Los Alamos in New Mexico.) While the public now can't get near the site (a massive cleanup operation is underway), a museum in town tells the story. Prior to 1943, the area's population was only a few hundred, but in a period of less than two years, it swelled to almost 50,000. The Hanford site produced the plutonium used in the test bomb (Trinity site in New Mexico) and in the second bomb dropped on Japan (i.e., the Nagasaka one), as well as everything the U.S. needed during the Cold War years. Only a tiny fraction of the WW II era workers knew what they were actually working on.
But not everone on our ship was interested in this history, and some succumbed to the lure of visiting Pendleton, Oregon, just across the river. (Can you say Pendleton shirts?)
I never knew there were more than a dozen TYPES of Saxophones! Tonight's entertainment was a 6-piece band that included 4 different types.
Next up was a day of scenic cruising along the Columbia River. One of the highlights was the John Day Dam and Lock, the only "guillotine style" lock built on the Columbia. It's design saves electricity, but maintenance of all the mechanical moving parts proved to be greater than the savings.) John Day Dam is the 2nd largest on the Columbia River, after the Grand Coulee Dam.
After dinner, we were entertained by a musician who is on "summer break" from her regular gig at the Grand Old Opry in Nashville. Oh, did I mention she has also played with the Carter Family Band, Willie Nelson, and with Johnny Cash? And was formerly married to Johnny Cash's son?
Our next port was The Dalles, Oregon. The Dalles (which means narrows or rapids) has been inhabitated by Native Americans for well over 10,000 years. We saw two local museums, one about the history and culture of the area, and one just for fun: The National Neon Sign Museum.
Getting to town from our ship took us past a massive Google data center, built here some years ago because of cheap land, cheap electricity, and plenty of cooling water from the Columbia River.
After cocktails and dinner, we were treated to an amazing country/boogie-woogie/honky-tonk one-man-band, who plays keyboards and trumpet at the same time. (His bio includes years of touring with country entertainers like Norm Hamlet and Merle Haggard.)
We passed Bonneville Dam during the night and woke up at Kalama, Washington, where the highlight tour was a visit to the Mt. St. Helens National Monument area. Following the big eruption 46 years ago, the recovery in different areas has being managed quite differently. Privately owned forest lands (largely Weyerhaeuser) were promptly cleared and new trees planted, while those part of the National Forest are in a "let nature take its course" mode. And the mountain is still "active," in that gas and steam regularly burst out of it. (Like the proverbial "Big One" in California, no one knows when it might erupt again.)
Next, we went as far west as we would go on this trip as we docked at Astoria, Washington. Astoria is sort of an odd town, in that it is part docks/fishing/canneries oriented, but it is also a quaint Victorian era town with lots of well preserved old houses, etc. It attracted a large population from Finland, who found the weather and the fishing to be "like home." We checked out the Maritime Museum, and the Lightship Columbia, which from 1951-1979 was a floating lighthouse, a few miles at sea from the mouth of the Columbia River.
Our first night entertainer was back with us for another synchornized video and music show, this time a tribute to Elvis Presley.
We headed back upstream, seeing the Bonneville Dam this time in daylight, we dock at Stevenson, Washington, the port closest to one of the area's most famous tourist attractions, the Multnomah Water Fall. At some 620 feet, it's the highest in the state. (We also were reminded where all those Douglas Fir 2X4's at Home Depot come from.) On the ship, we had a wonderful Veterans program.
This ACL trip was shorter than our east coast one last year, so just to compensate, we have now signed up for a 16 day ACL trip next summer along the Ohio River.
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