Miles, Hood River and Portland – in May! Hood River 1

Massive blog oversight discovered – we never posted about our trip to see Miles in May! Not sure what happened, as cndkmen both thought it had been posted. Better late than never, hope you enjoy these photos of us celebrating early summer in the Pacific Northwest with Miles!

We flew from Chicago to Portland then drove the hour or so east along the Columbia River, to Hood River.

It really earns the title of National Scenic Area. Wow. The drive there on the Oregon / south side of the river was really amazing, with mountains rising right up with just enough space beside the river for the road and a train track. Our plan was to stay a few days in Hood River, while Miles was busy in Portland, then drive to Portland to stay for the rest of the week and see him. On day 2 he surprised me (John was in on the plan) though with a Mother’s Day visit! We went to the nearby town of Mosier for a hike up to a vantage point overlooking the river. We then took a second walk to some tunnels.

We had room for 3 at the airbnb, so Miles stayed over and we went for a really amazing breakfast the next day. Starting off here with some baked oatmeal.

Then Miles headed back to Portland and we went for a walk along an old, discontinued water pipe that now has a walking path along top of it. The roaring river below showed so much power, very well illustrating how the full pipeline didn’t survive due to flooding! Chicago, I think you could really do this on Goose Island, where there is a similar pipe across the Chicago River. It was so cool – great views right close to the river, and a really unique kind of walkway!

Note that the last three photos show how by taking a ladder down you can get to the riverbank level and have a look around there, at a little river beach. We were in the process of climbing down what looks like a really rusty and dangerous (but wasn’t so bad!) ladder when two people walking by called out “Why are you doing that?” Pretty funny and we did have a moment of asking ourselves the same question, but it was definitely worth exploring around on that level too!

Here’s our airbnb, outside and in. Really nice!

There’s a mountain on the Oregon side called Mount Hood, and a mountain on the Washington side called Mount Adams, and our days in the area included a lot of suddenly spotting a mountain top and saying, there’s Mount Hood! Oh no, maybe Mount Adams! I’m sure that locals have no trouble telling them apart but we were so thrown off with no street grid for north/south orientation and not zero but 2 mountains and a lot of “near mountains” in view, we never really got it figured out. Here’s one of them!