When was the last time you did something for the first time?
Oregon was a very short lived trip by far. We packed up out tent site at Olympic National Park and headed south towards Portland, OR. Here we would drop Josh off to head back home and we would keep heading to Portland REI for our event that night.
This was the first event we had attended not showered, and barely any clean clothes. Which made for good laughs throughout the night. We were also fortunate enough to have had a friend and his wife out in Portland visiting their sons and had rented a house for the week we would be there. They invited us to stay with them for the 2 nights. We took them up on that offer, seeing as though being so far away for so long, it was always nice to be around friends.
We woke up the next morning refreshed and energized. We decided to sight see a bit while we were there since we only had two full days to explore such a beautiful city. On our agenda was to see some gorgeous waterfalls, one of which I had known about from a friend who had lived in Portland for a year or so, meet up with an intern of ours from the OBS, and take a ride to check out Mount Hood. We decided to make the first day a city day. We chatted back and forth with our friend Eman and picked a time to meet him for some beers and lunch.
We headed into the city, found parking and met up with Eman. Becca and I had to get our "local brew" in while here so we picked a really fun unique brewery in downtown Portland. It was called Deschutes Brewery. I decided to go with a flight and taste test some of there best beers, instead of having to choose only one. We all ordered our food and caught up. Once we had finished our lunches, Eman showed us around the City while we searched for a cupcake place for me. Eventually, stumbling across Cupcake Jones.
After indulging in some sweets we continued walking around and stumbled upon Hi-Tech. Being one of our sponsors we figured it would be a good idea to check in and meet the people behind the scenes that we have been working with for the last few months. It was great to see they home base and the new line for the following seasons shoes!
We eventually parted ways with Eman, wishing him the best in the future and hoping to see him again and headed back to our place. Becca and I relaxed for the rest of the night, grabbing dinner at the small pub beneath us, then eventually meeting up with our friend Slim and his wife Alexa.
On day 2, we decided to head out some what early and make our rounds. We started off heading towards Mount Hood National Forest. We stopped into the visitor center, as we did everywhere we went. We gathered information and headed up towards the Timberline Lodge.
Timberline Lodge is the Hotel located on Mount Hood, that was used to film the movie The Shining. Most believe the movie was filmed at the Mount Washington Hotel, but was not. We parked our car and watched dozens of people carrying their ski equipment into the lodge to head out skiing for the day. Yes, in August they were still skiing. It was pretty spectacular.
We headed into the Lodge to look around, and read up on the history to the place. While doing so they had an entire wall dedicated to the movie The Shining. This was pretty neat to see, seeing as though it touches home. While exploring we found a small hole in the wall bar. We decided to stop and enjoy a brew from here.
I of course went with the Mount Hood Ice Axe IPA. We headed out shortly after that. On our way back towards our next destination we were getting hungry and stopped at a Mac Donalds and enjoyed our lunch on some sort of inlet to the water. We walked around, took some photos, and then headed out once our stomachs were full.
We took a road that was full of scenic waterfalls. I believe it was part of the Columbia Gorge Scenic Waterfalls. The first waterfall we came across that was spectacular enough for us to pull over and stop was Horsetail Falls. Then we continued onward to most amazing of them all, Mulnomah Falls. Multnomah Falls is the highest waterfall in the Columbia River Gorge with a total drop of 620 feet.
There was a nice paved path that took you up to the first bridge crossing, while there you could look up even further to see a second bridge crossing. We headed up the path with hundreds of other people. As we continued walking along, we realized you could go to the very top of the fall. So we continued upward hitting 11 switchbacks, steep ones at that. I have to admit- I felt incredibly embarrassed to be wearing jeans and flip flops while hiking up this waterfall. They were Teva flip flops though, so they had great traction.
We made it to the top and took some photos and headed back down to the car. We headed back towards our place to spend the night, grab some dinner and hit the hay. We were to be up pretty early to make our somewhat long trek, down the coast to California.
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