Into the Land of the Lost– internet, that is

Columbia River Gorge

Oregon is beautiful. It has definitely moved into my top three states. You may, however, have noticed that it has been a while since the Diary has been updated. That is because since we left the state of Washington  (remember that logger Jamboree) we have had little or no internet access. For those of you who are counting that is around three weeks.  Part of it is our fault, we chose to stay at parks in places too remote for a cellphone signal, much less full internet. The rest of the time you can blame  Hughes Communications. It seems many  campgrounds on the Oregon coast and into Northern California  use them for their internet service. Their service is glacially slow ( load a page and go make the coffee because it will be a while slow) and for some reason Hughes will not speak to an Apple laptop.  We had Verizon most places so we could check email and do some basic searches, but posting to the blog wasn’t an option.  This left us plenty of time to enjoy the sights, but now I have to play catch up.

Hanging on for dear life

Our first stop in Oregon was the Columbia River Gorge. When planning our trips, and selecting sights to see, we usually depend on travel sites or brochures to get a sense of what we are in for.  I mustn’t have paid close attention because I had pictured, in my mind, a narrow, cliff-lined gorge, with a rocky river raging through it. Look at the photo above. It is wide and  and mellow; the river is hardly raging. Maybe when Lewis and Clark went through it was more wild, but it surely has been tamed since. But it was lovely. There are some high cliffs and lots of waterfalls to enjoy. We stayed at Memaloose State Park, near Hood River. As I said, no internet, but the park was nice and quiet and stretched along the high cliffs lining the river. We really enjoyed the area. Hood River is a neat town built up the hills along the Columbia River. Wind surfing, kite boarding and paddle boarding are the sports to do and it was quite the colorful scene at the riverside park. There were vineyards and orchards  to explore, and, of course, Mt. Hood to visit.

No free samples

Mt. Hood