Hood River

Days 18 and 19, June 23 and 24, 2017, Wedding and touring

I.                     June 23, the Wedding

This was the event that was the genesis of the trip, (much like the wedding in Georgia that was the genesis for the 2105 trip.) the wedding of Eric and Laura.

No breakfast at the Westcliff Lodge, but we walked around the spacious and beautiful grounds. It is set in the woods on a cliff overlooking the river.

Drove into town for breakfast at Bettie’s Place. Good food, healthy portions, nice service, but prices 10% higher than LA. However, there is no sales tax. Hood River is a small town, but there are no very few public parking lots and all the street parking in the downtown area is metered. $1 per hour, three hours max.

We walked around the town after eating. Very hot already. Cute downtown, but not much there. The main activity in town seems to be water recreation sports. There are almost constant easterly winds blowing through the gorge and when someone had the idea to bolt a sail to a surf board made Hood River the self proclaimed windsurfing capital of the world. Lots of older, early 19^th century buildings each with a plaque on it. Amazing how cheap in absolute dollars it was to build then, $17,500 for the library. Mailed a post card at the post office, built 1936, and looked at bicycle rentals. Drove down to the waterfront area which until recently seemed to be commercial and warehouse, cutting the people off from much of it. Now there are new parks, bikeways and several hotels and condo construction projects. Went to look for the wedding departure site and after several wrong turns we found it at the east end of town.

Back to the motel for some rest, but spent a few hours trying to do the paperwork and money transfer for mortgage loan for my son, but unsuccessful. Need to go to a BoA office, but none in this town and the FedEx office is not open on Saturday.

Back to the wedding departure site to board the bus for transportation to the wedding site which is in a very rural part of White Salmon, Washington. $1 toll to cross the river. Not too many bridges across the Columbia River. While parking we met another wedding guest. He told us that he was going to the bathroom and asked us to hold the bus. We tried to do that, but after 5 minutes the wedding planner was adamant that the bus leave. I was worried about him, but he made it to the wedding, I assume in his own car since that was the only bus from that site.

Wedding was at an event site, The Tin Roof Barn. Very nice, but hot under the sun. The wedding ceremony was outdoors. Maybe it was nerves, or maybe the heat got to her, but the bride asked her future husband to be her wife. She was unresponsive to the gentle urgings of the groom to say “husband”. The party was in a big barn. The food and the party were good. I did not know too many people and spent a fair amount of time speaking with a former LA Times reporter I recalled from the groom’s sister’s wedding, and a friend of the groom who is descended from Bolivian and Iranian parents. He and his girlfriend are lawyers in Seattle. He was the one we met in the parking lot at the hotel pick-up and somehow, he missed the bus when he went to the bathroom at Starbucks and had to make a purchase to use it. But he made it to the wedding. Also spoke at length to a couple from Bend that have a window shade business. They said business was good, but that Bend was getting too big and losing the environment that attracted them to the city in the first place.

Bit of a mix-up at the end of the party. There were two return buses, one to town and the first one to the hotel parking lot. I, and some others did not know that or missed the announcement so we missed the bus that was going to the parking lot. When we got on the second bus the bus driver was clearly annoyed about having to swing by the hotel. I doubt that there was Uber there. Long Day.

II.                   June 24 The Touring

Still full from the wedding dinner so a minimal breakfast of apples and bananas. Drove to the visitor’s center to get information on bicycle routes, rentals and other things to do. The staff was very helpful.

Drove into downtown to do a bike rental. Karen decided that cycling was not her idea of fun, especially since she would have to ride through town and up a steep series of switchbacks to get to the bicycle trail. So, it was just me replicating my usual Saturday morning bike ride. The bike shop attendant was very friendly, but surprisingly not knowledgeable about the Columbia River Highway trail that the visitor center staff had proposed. So, armed with my map and lots of water I descended through town, across the Hood River and up the switchbacks to the Highway. The park visitor center there had big signs pronouncing that this was a fee area. I went into the center and asked how to pay the fee. The male ranger politely informed me that no fee was needed if I did not have a car. However, a female clerk strongly suggested that I make a $5 donation since she informed me that the state parks received no state funding. I kicked in $1 since I had already paid the $5 fee several times on this trip.

The highway is a scenic stretch of the original 1916 Columbia River highway. This stretch was abandoned in 1954 with the opening of I-84, its tunnels backfilled and the roadway deteriorated into an overgrown footpath. Pictures at the visitor center showed the history. However, in 2000 the route was restored (the tunnels are better than in their original condition, now lined and lighted) and repaved as a motorized free recreation route. It is very pretty with lots of greenery and breathtaking views of the river and gorge. But very little of the 5.6-mile route is level. So, while the elevation from the park visitor center to the trail high point was only 450 feet, (in addition to the 400 feet on the switchbacks from the town to the trailhead.) I suspect that there was at least another 200 ft. in up and down elevation. Fortunately, the rented bike’s gears were very good and I ran through many of them. So, while the up hills were a struggle with waves of heat rolling up from the asphalt trail, the down hills were a reward. I met some other guests from the wedding who were walking the route which gave me an excuse to stop during which we conversed. I passed through two restored tunnels, the Snowbound inscription (party was stranded in a snowstorm in 1921 with some deaths) and Chicken Charlie Island (no explanation)

At the end of the route I road another mile down a road to the very small town of Mosier. Had some ice cream and read emails to get out of the heat.

I picked up Karen in town and we drove off to visit part of the “Fruit Loop”. This area of Oregon is a major producer of apples, pears, cherries, grapes and of course wine.  Good volcanic soil and pure glacier water make for abundant harvests. There were lots of outlets along the trail with fruits, ice cream, baked goods and wineries. We had some of all. Also walked through a lavender field. All this was done under the looming presence of snow covered Mt. Hood. Toward the end we stopped at the Cathedral Ridge Winery. I think this was the same place we stopped during our 2014 trip.  It was crowded so we sat outside with our wine looking at snow covered Mt. Adams.

For dinner, we walked over to the Columbia Gorge Hotel. This seems to be the grand dame hotel of the gorge with unbeatable gorge views and a view of a 208-ft. waterfall on the river. Nice, intimate, romantic dinner.