Field Trip!

My friend Eileen and I drove out east last Sunday. We wanted to do a bikeride on the old Columbia River Highway trail. Has anyone else been out there?

This is a few miles past Hood River.

We got out our bikes and realized that for our first trip, we were woefully under-prepared. No sunscreen, no sunglasses, no bike repair kit, and no idea where we were going. It was awesome.
Turns out this trail is completely car-free; only bikers, walkers, and roller-bladers were up there. So cool.

We went pretty much straight up hill. No joke. With my little handmade 2 speed roadster it was quite a challenge. A hot sweaty breathless challenge.


Can you see the cars down there in the bottom left? That's the elevation level of where we parked. Once up to the very top we reached for our water bottles.

We also had to take some pictures!

We didn't know, however, that we were at the very top, as we had no idea where we were or where we were headed. If we had to go up much more, I don't know if we woulda make it!


After our water break, we hit the Mosier Twin Tunnel.


It was so incredibly pretty to pass through. Man, what a view. There were little grates for us to look through down at all that clear water.

After we passed through the tunnel, we stopped at this cool waterfall:

The trail finally kinda leveled out, and the breeze with the occasional shady passageway made this part the most enjoyable.

Eileen and I ended up at this ranger station area. We stopped to use the bathroom and went inside the tourist area where there were maps and merchandise. The volunteer working in there answered our questions for us--we had come about 4.5 miles, and were about a mile from Hood River. Crazy!

We thanked him and asked if he'd take a picture for us:

Heading back took us about 15 minutes. If you compare that with the 1 1/2 hours it took us to get there, maybe you'll get an idea of how crazy uphill it was on the way there. Yeesh. We felt so good and so proud when we were cruising down the mountain.

We decided to keep biking into Mosier, a tiny tiny little town. This guy is also the town's Fire Chief.
He moved to Mosier from Portland a few years ago and loves it out here. I can see why. Surrounded by all this nature would be hard to want to leave.

We bought some apricots that were ripe and juicy and delicious.

Then he gave us each a yellow plum, which was even better! I didn't even take a picture. I just mowed it down.

There was this cute retro shop that had a whole bunch of old cars and sold ice cream.

It was so cute and old-fashioned! Then Eileen pointed out this decal in the window:

Ha!

It was time to move on. We threw our bikes into her truck (that's a lie, actually. It took us about 20 minutes and 3 tries to carefully fit the bikes in just so.) and headed into Hood River.

We each got an iced coffee and walked around to explore the town.


It's such a neat town! I can't believe it's only about an hour away and I've never been here before. Of course we HAD to go to Full Sail Brewery and try a beer.
It was so crowded, it took us almost an hour to get seated and order. I had their LTD (Limited Edition Series) and just some french fries with mustard for a snack. Their fries come with a choice of sauces, but neither one was vegan. :(

Then of course I had to try a Session from the source.

Look how cute! They give you a matching glass.
It was good, but not as good or flavorful as the LTD.

Did you know that Full Sail is owned by 47 different people?! It seems such a nice community-based business. It's right on the river, and you can overlook people sailing and doing water-based sports like kite sailing. So cool!

We headed back. I have to say, it's not a terrible view:


We had a blast and made plans to do lots more biking and some hiking and maybe camping really soon, before summer's over. So much to do, so little time!

Rob and I are thinking of heading back to Hood River for our year anniversary next month. Has anyone spent some time out there? Have a good hotel or B&B to stay at, or some good vegan food suggestions?