For a getaway from the normal weekend bustle at home, and to celebrate our 8^th wedding anniversary, Jessica and James decided to enjoy a long weekend in Oregon in mid-April, to sample some of northwest’s abundant nature offerings and its growing culinary reputation that has been sprouting up in the region.   Jessica wanted to stay in a scenic area, thus we chose to stay in the Columbia River Gorge area.

Weather in the Northwest can always be unpredictable, and forecast was for mostly rain during our visit, except on the day of our arrival.  Thus, we decided to see as much as we can between Portland airport and Hood River during the first day, where our hotel is located.   The sky was clear as we drove eastward on I84.   We can see the snow-capped Mount Hood during the early part of our drive.    As recommended by a friend, we first went to Multnomah Falls, which is about 30 miles from the airport just off I84 – there is even a special parking lot off the freeway.  This is a tourist spot, but it provides visitors with a well setup view of the falls on two separate levels within a short stroll.   And for those who are willing to hike a bit more, there is a trail that leads to the top of the fall.

 

 

 

 

 

After taking our share of the pictures, James decided to get some water from the concession stand there.  While he was waiting in line to get a bottle water, there were a couple of ladies from the Midwest ahead of me in line who were thinking about getting some coffee.  But after learning of the price for the coffee, they decided to pass.  They just didn’t think it was worth it – where is DD coffee when you need it.   It was an interesting people watching moment.

After leaving Multnomah Falls, we double back on the side road (Historic Columbia River Highway) for a short stretch and saw a couple of other nearby scenic spots, the Horsetail Falls and Oneonta Tunnel and Gorge.  Continuing back along I84 eastward, we decide to see if we can see the Dry Creek Falls in the Cascade Locks area that we saw on a map.  The fall appears to be about a mile off the road; however, once in the Cascade Locks area, we couldn’t quite found an ‘entrance way’ to the fall.  We drove off some dirt road the width of a car for a while but didn’t see any sign to lead the way.   In any case, we abandon our search and head back onto the I84 again.

We next stopped at Mitchell’s Point overlooking a picturesque portion of the river, where we have a view both upstream and downstream of the river, and across the river we can see the tunnels that lined the edge of the river.   We saw a number of trains along the tracks on both side of the river while we were took some pictures of the river.

We arrived at the Best Western in Hood River around 4PM.   The hotel is located along the river just upstream of the Hood River Bridge.  Our room had a river view and can see the Hood River Bridge from our balcony.   After checking-in, James had wanted to go further eastward and see more of the area that day.  However, Jessica decided to take a nap before dinner.   That night, we dinned at the hotel restaurant, Riverside, which was one of the more highly rated restaurants based on Yelp ratings in the area.  We settled on their specials of the day, a New York strip steak and the grill salmon, along with a cup of their homemade tomato soup and clam chowder plus a kale Caesar salad.    The tomato soup was exceptional – one of the best we ever had.  The steak came with asparagus and roasted potatoes was done quite well.   Jessica really like the Salmon, which came with a bed of risotto and vegetables.

Completely filled up, we went back to our room after dinner and watched some TV while planning out our next day’s itinerary – Jessica fell asleep quickly while James finished off a basketball game before turning off the lights.

The next morning, after a light workout at the hotel gym, James went to the local Walmart to pick up some food supplies for our day’s road trip.  After eating a full breakfast at the hotel, we started our drive toward Mt. Hood around 10AM.  The morning was clear during the early hours, but by the time we left, the cloud began to emerge.  Our plan was to drive as far south as we can while taking in the sights along the way, before returning back to Hood River for dinner.

As we headed deeper and higher into Mt. Hood, we saw that there were still plenty of snow on the ground.  We drove onto side roads looking for interesting spots.  We ran into a few falls and creeks that were near the road, but we didn’t go onto any of the trails.  Some trails along the mountain are still packed with snow.   It rained during stretches of our drive through Mt. Hood but we were able to catch some beautiful scenery spots in the park.

After we exited Mt Hood’s south entrance, we took a detour through Warm Spring Reservation.  The landscape in the reservation has wide open space with small rolling hills and canyons.  There were small cluster of houses/buildings along the road but it was generally an area of wide expanse.   We decided to head toward a hotel/resort inside the reservation for lunch (Kah-Nee-Ta Resort & Spa).

The hotel was a modern structural look but it blends into the area sitting atop a small hill.  The main restaurant at the hotel was not open when we arrived; we headed to its bar and grill.  There were only a few people there, which made it looked even more cavernous.  The room has a number of televisions around the room, along with a few billiards tables and a small game room adjacent to it.   While the menu offer mostly basic fares such as sandwiches, burgers, and wings, it did have a few unique items.  We tried the fried Warm Spring bread, which was a small pizza size bread about an inch thick.  The bread has a light fried skin with a soft interior and a sweet taste.  It was almost able to fill the both of us by itself.  We also ordered some wings, fries, and a Mediterranean platter, which had pita bread, humus, olives and Greek salad.

After lunch, we continued our drive south as we exited the reservation. There was a casino on the edge of the reservation off the main road when we exited – wondered if there are any reservation without a casino these days.   We decided to head toward Madas, which would lead us to Cove Palisades State Park, which the map showed to have a large lake.   The road to the lake area had us drove through some farmland road before reaching the edge of lake, where we would drove down from a hill to the edge of the marina area.

Lake Billy Chinook is a longish lake that seems to be engulfed by canyons on two sides.  The lake is at the confluence of Crooked, Deschutes and Metolius Rives.  There were only a few boats in the lake when we arrived, but there were a number of boats that were waiting to get launched into the water.   It was fairly windy in the canyon surrounding, but the water, wind and quietness combination made sitting along the edge of the lake relaxing.

As we started to leave the lake area driving up the hill, Jessica spotted a fall off the hill on side of the road.  Jessica almost fell down the hill trying to take a picture of the fall.  But in her quest of stretching the limits, she said that we maybe able to get a better view from the road below.  We then doubled back to the marina and continue onward until we arrived at a spot with a full view of the fall.  We both thought it was a strange spot for a waterfall, as we couldn’t figure out the source of the fall.

The sky was partly cloudy around Cove Palisades State Park we started our way back to Hood River around 4:30PM.  The road and weather was almost picture perfect as we drove past Madas and Warm Springs, with sun peaking through the clouds.  However, as we approached Mt Hood National Forrest, the sky darkened and the rain started to fall.  Riding into ‘snow zone’ area, rain fell harder and harder.  One thing we noticed is that most cars driving through the Forrest at that time appears to be four wheel drives – we probably wasn’t using the most appropriate car for the condition.    Near the summit of the road, the rain came down in sheets, and we have to slow down a bit to ensure we didn’t lose control of the car through the unknown turns as we descended down the mountain.

As we drove past the northern entrance of Mt. Hood, the sky began to clear and the rain became lighter.  When we arrived back at Hood River, the rain had became a trickle.  We drove to the town looking at potential options for dinner.  We first drove down to the riverfront area, but Jessica wasn’t feeling like burgers and pizzas that we found in the two restaurants in that area.  Then we drove into the town center area – and tried another recommendation we were given by the hotel staff – Sixth Street Bistro & Loft.  This restaurant offers classic dishes, but also some Asian fusion dishes, like satay, stir-fry, coconut curry and phad-thai.   But what enticed Jessica was that the restaurant uses organic locally sources ingredients.

We ordered the chicken satay, the cream of artichoke soup, a pear & walnut salad with mix green and the phad-thai.   The satay used free-range chicken and was grilled lightly that was tender and soft, and came with sauce and shredded carrots and onions.  The satay was also accompanied by a small cup of calrose rice, which was great in soaking up the sauces.  One of the better satay we’ve had.  The salad was also great – with the parings blended well with a lite vinaigrette dressing.    The server had convinced James to get the ‘medium’ spice level for the phad-thai, which had rice noodles served over a bed of rice.  It was very good, except it was a bit too spicy for James – should have gotten the mild version.  James was able to finished about a third of it before passing it over to Jessica.

Returning to the hotel after dinner, Jessica quickly fell asleep.  James stayed up to finish watching the Warriors-Blazer playoff game before dozing off himself.

The main plan the following day was to head into Portland for some shopping.  The morning was also a bit more overcast, and we were both a bit slower to get up.   We didn’t leave the hotel until almost noon.   We decided to drive across the bridge to the Washington side and drove toward Portland from the scenic highway on that side of the river.  The Hood River Bridge is a two-lane bridge with a metal grill surface.  It made driving across the road a bit challenging as the car seem to want to lean toward one side or the other as you drive on it.

After reaching the Washington side, we first headed to a hatchary area that provided some nice view of the Oregon side of the river.  We saw some falls on the Oregon side that we didn’t see when we were driving on that side.   We next stopped at the Drano Lake, which was another recreational area just off the river.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we drove through the Columbia Scenic Area, we stopped at a few places that had great views.   The tricky part was that most of the area where we could stop were on the other side of the road; we end up doubling back a few times to get to the best spots.   With all the stopping, it took us about two plus hours driving that 50 or so miles.

It was well past 2PM when we got into Portland.  With I5 closed for one stretch through the city for the weekend, we had to detour to get to downtown.   Jessica was buying something for a friend at a local store there, but we end up getting something at the local Columbia store as well.   After picking up those items, Jessica wanted to head to one of the well-known premium outlet there (Woodburn), which was about a 30 minutes’ drive south of downtown Portland.    We spent a couple of hours there, picking up a few items.  There are no sales tax in Oregon.

On the way back to Hood River on I84, we drove along the side road for a stretch to see if we can see a few places we have missed the previous day.    We were able to find a couple of small falls we hadn’t see on our first day, but we still weren’t able to find some of the larger falls we saw on the other side of the road earlier in the day.

It was almost 8PM when we got back to the hotel.  We decided to eat at the hotel restaurant again as Jessica wanted to try the Salmon again.  Unfortunately, there was no fresh fish available on the menu that day.   Jessica ordered the lamb special for the day as her alternative choice while James tried the Clam Vongole.   We also ordered the fried calamari along with the tomato soup again.  Both of main courses were prepared well, although we thought the steak and salmon the other day were probably better.  We wrapped up our last dinner there with a cheesecake for dessert.

Not certain of the traffic and weather, we left for the airport early the next morning.  It was raining fairly hard, but with the traffic was relatively light all the way to the airport.   Due to our early arrival, we had almost two hours at the terminal before our flight.   We decided to use that time to a slow breakfast at one of the café in the terminal, doing some reading and people watching while we ate.  With plenty of coffee that the locals enjoy.