Friday 29th,  2016

This month has whipped by pretty fast.  We have very fond memories of our old campsite in Hood River. Dean worked at the town hospital for quite a few summers and we always had the same spot in a very dumpy park next to a motel.  I kept the grass watered and one summer Dax stayed a while so he was in charge of mowing.  I made sure to have plenty of flower pots to brighten up the area.

  

We loved having the lads visit over the years. Jay usually managed to find ways to get in a few pushups, If you enlarge this picture you can see the top bit is brown.  That is what the rest of the campground looked like. A whole lot of depressing brown. Most of the other campers are old beaters with tarps on the roof.

   

There were storage containers on one side of us and I picked up “art” work from thrift shops to decorate them with duct tape frames.  It was hokey for sure but it made our spot nice and cheery.

This is the only spot we could get this year.  The place is going belly up. We are in the “Brown” part. The good deal is we can walk to town and the river.

We managed to snag both our lads for a weekend.  Jay bought his dog Maya. (They slept in a tent, only humans allowed to sleep  in the camper)  Since she might be the closest we ever come to grandchildren I thought I had better make friends.  I even managed to pat her head. (Rose is a great big scaredy cat around dogs) It helped that she didn’t bark or show me a bunch of sharp, bitey teeth.

         

My 3 most favorite men in the world.

It’s always fun to watch the wind surfers and kite boarders.  Hood River is famous for it’s summer wind. The Columbia river is flowing west but the wind is blowing eastwards. This creates good sized waves and exciting moments of air acrobats as the boarders and kiters become airborne.

  

We all still have our Honda Elements. Ours is the cleanest.

We picked cherries, blueberries, blackberries, plums and peaches.  The rule is always eat, eat, pick, eat, eat…….

 

    

I now have a nice stash of jam.

   

It was a lovely hike up to Badger Creek Wilderness. That is Mount Hood behind us. At 11249 ft it is the highest peak in Oregon.

As usual I think I look the best posing on a tree.  Dean looks pretty cute though.

   

I had a nice little wildflower fix.

  

We stopped in at the Dirty Finger Bike shop.  This shop is conjoined with a coffee roasting/cafe. You can get food and coffee, or our preference cider and beer and watch while your bike is being fixed. Now that’s what I call full service.

I have always loved the local library.  Many years ago I got a library card here for $20.  They said I could return it at the end of our stay with a full refund, or keep it. It was a very good investment.  I have used it over the years to snag audio and kindle books online. When here I can get as many books as I want to browse through.  The building looks pretty small from the front but the back has huge windows overlooking the town and the Columbia River.

    

We made a car trip to Bend in the middle of the State to check out potential pickelball stopovers in the future.  You know you have goodness when you have a cidery next to a brewery.  I love Atlas cider, especially their blackberry and apricot.  We had a lovely time visiting with our good friend Sherry who just moved to Sisters which is close to Bend.  Thank you Sherry, for buying a house with a nice long, flat motorhome friendly driveway.

    

Even though I’m an atheist I appreciate the humor in some of the signs outside country churches.

Since Dax lives quite a bit closer we were lucky to have him stay over a couple more weekends. He was a good sport and climbed inside this very expensive truck tire while we were waiting to our mini car tires to be rotated.  I do think purple looks good on my men.

 

             

We did a 10 mile hike across the river in Washington. The plan was to check out the alpine wildflowers on Mount Adams.  The first part of the hike was a bit depressing as a wildfire had devastated the area.  Blackened stubs and tree skeletons covered a huge area.

     

Ahhhhh…… Finally we got out of the burn area.  Beautiful alpine flowers in abundance. Mount Adams in the background is 12281 ft.  On the way back in the late afternoon we chatted with a couple of young ladies who had hiked to the peak that day. They had started at 4am and had to use ice picks and crampons to reach the top. With a 12 mile round trip and 6700ft elevation gain they still looked pretty chipper. I stopped my whining about my achy feet after that chat.

     

Dean snagged us some lovely cold mountain stream water. That little filter works like a charm.

       

I got pretty toasty and had to have a couple lie downs.  I enjoy relaxing on a nice snowbank on a hot summers day

  

The trail led us through many meadows and over streams. I do love alpine hiking in the summer.

  

The heat is ratcheting up into the mid 90’s. Our tin house is starting to feel like a toaster oven. Onwards tomorrow towards the Olympic Peninsular in Washington.