We were on our way to Bend-Sunriver RV Park between La Pine and Bend. When we arrived we saw all kinds of other names but note Bend-Sunriver, so I was not sure that we were at the right place. In the confusion the marketing manger for Thousand trails interjected and told me about Thousand Trails and their special offer. What it boils down to is 30 nights of stay for $14 / night and thereafter $3 per night for an annual fee of $425. The rules are: if you stay 4 nights in a resort you can book into another resort in the network the following day and if you want to stay longer it is capped to 14 nights in one resort. If you stay longer than 4 nights you need to use other parks outside the network for 7 days. The spread and location of resorts in Oregon and Washington seems well spaced on our intended route and the 4 night rule fits our travel style perfectly. So I bought into the Thousand Trails camping network as it guarantees monetary savings.
Bend is Central Oregon’s largest city. It is located on the eastern edge of the Cascade Mountain range and also on the edge between the forests and the high dessert. Mirror pond on the banks of the Deschutes River is also where you find Drake Park, a very nice park next to the downtown area and a stunning neighborhood.
On our way to Portland we spend a few hours in Sisters, in the shadow of the snow capped Three Sisters Wilderness. It is a friendly and artistic little town, known for the once a year quilt show. This tourist hotspot celebrates the American west in style and charm with 1880’s facades on store fronts. This route provides a scenic view of the 9065 ft Mt Batchelor, with the largest ski resort in the Northwest nearby.
Just outside of Sisters we took an “off the beaten track” road though the Mt Jefferson Wilderness driving the West Cascades Scenic Byway with hardly any traffic and stayed over in Detroit for the weekend. This is not Detroit city but its namesake, is a small town with a very beautiful lake which is a perfect breakaway for boating enthusiasts. This road is a seasonal road which means it is closed in winter. It is narrow twisty and steep but well worth traveling with lush forests and river crossings all the way. Mount Jefferson is the second highest mountain in Oregon. When the forest clears every now and then on your way towards Portland the MT Jefferson provides a beautiful back drop with its craggy and deeply glacially scarred appearance.
Clackamas River
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Portland is not a beautiful city but it is unique in its own way. It has an old look and feel to it and certainly it does not have a sense of cleanliness about it. It’s a compact and walk able city with great views of the snow draped 11245ft Mt Hood. Yet it is known as an environmentally friendly “green” and the “Rose City”. “Green” because of its public transportation networks and efficient land-use planning and “Rose City” because of the ideal climate for growing roses. Portland is not the capitol of Oregon as one would think. This honor belongs to Salem south of Portland.
The Willamette and Columbia rivers runs through and as the population and transport needs increased bridges and highways were build to meet the demand but it appear to be patch work over an already out of date city layout. The bridges are an example of the previous century designs adding to the old look and feel. Portland being 100 miles from the Pacific is an inland fresh water harbor on the banks of the Columbia River which is a very busy shipping waterway that provides a shipping channel right up to Lewiston Idaho. A series of locks allow ships and barges to navigable this river this far inland.
We bought tickets on the “Hop on Hop off Pink Bus” for a tour of the city and the driver’s commentary gave us a quick overview and history lesson of Portland. Our tour guide also pointed out that Portland is very dog and bicycle friendly. Throughout the USA this is obvious, but here you will find a huge amount of tolerance for dogs and cyclists, with special facilities to cater for the needs.
City view from hill in Washington Park
Mt Hood in a distance at dawn
Wooden ATM safe in one of Chinatowns streets and down town houses as seen from the cable way
Though out the USA but in particularly Portland bicycles and cyclists are well catered for with special facilities in public transport, bicycle stands or hanging spaces conveniently placed and safe paved bicycle pathways, some times even with its own streetlights.
Some restaurants allow you to seat your dog at your table with special doggy menus. There are dog day care centers, plastic bag dispensers everywhere etc etc. Some people have up to 3 or 4 of these small and even big pet friends on leaches. I don’t hate dogs, don’t get me wrong, but I believe dogs should have its place, preferably outside, but this is pushing my tolerance levels of certain mankind to break point. Imagine the following and then tell me what is so civilized or enjoyable about it. Walking dogs on leaches a couple of times a day often means the dog pulls you in a direction where you don’t want to go. Two dogs on a leach means 2 directions tearing your arms from you body. Dogs bark at everything that moves and sometimes endlessly when owners lock them up in RVs, cars, pens or tie then to a tree, to the frustration of others that seek just piece and quiet. Dogs shed hair and leave an oily residue where every it sit or lay down. Saliva is natural to all dogs but what is not natural is the spatting of saliva all over you cars interior when you travel with your dear friend, that’s beside the tattered seats and furniture as a result of it move and jump around in spaces not meant for dogs. Dogs love to smell, lick or eat other dogs excrete and smell the behinds of other dogs, and owners love to kiss or be licked in the face by the same germ and tick carrier. They then take offence if you don’t give their cute pet or themselves attention just because you like to keep their smelly, oily dirty, noisy, stubborn, and canine at a distance. Some owners carry then in their arms like babies or in baskets, others ride them in special carts behind the bicycles. No wonder a gentleman commented to me, that he would like to be a dog of on of there rich yuppies in his next live. This very same owners will allow their doggy to relieve itself of a land mine in front of your doorstep because it cannot be very pleasant to put your hand in a plastic bag to pick up the smelly, soft and hot shit and then put it in a handbag or pocket or whatever they do with it before they hopefully properly trash it. What is so civilized about going out for the nice meal with a smelly, chowing, slurping, licking canine at your table or even in the restaurant somewhere.
We stayed at Columbia River RV Park on the northern eastern side of Portland. It was very much a city type park where cemented sites are cramped next to each other but neat and clean, and is was literally fully occupied.
Boat houses in the Columbia river near the Columbia River RV park
East of Portland, at the foothills of Mt Hood, you can still travel through parts of the original Historic Columbia River Hwy along the mighty Columbia River which cuts an 80 mile long deep gorge reaching 4000 ft deep at places through the Cascade Mountains. Some stretches are being restored as a hiking and biking corridor. We camped in the Ainsworth State Park where all the trees were literally covered and drabbing and dripping from all the green moss that covers every inch around you. It almost felt like some scene from a horror movie. I loved the atmosphere but my wife thought it was a bit on the wild side.
The engineer that supervised the Columbia River Highway project, proposed the building of Vista House on the summit of Crown Point to inspire travelers along the highway and to make the wonders of the gorge accessible. From this 733 ft vantage point above the Columbia River, the majestic Vista House provides spectacular views of the Columbia gorge.
This area is also known for the highest amount of waterfalls in a confined area
The 611 ft Multnomah Falls, one of the highest in the USA, is the main attraction in the Columbia River Gorge. A steep trial of 1 mile takes you to a platform above the falls. This was quite a strenuous walk which is not recommended for the unfit. I barely made it to the top.
Just a few miles to the west is another easily accessible jewel the 176 ft high Horse tail. The shape of the falls and the rounded rock face over which it flows cause it to resemble a horse’s tail.
Bonneville Lock and Dam consists of several structures that complete the span across the river. The structure consists of an old and a new power plant, the spillway and the old and the new locks. It primary functions are power generation and allowing ships to navigate up and down the river. This is the first lock of seven in the Columbia-Snake Inland waterway, a navigable water highway running 465 miles from the Pacific to Lewiston in Idaho. An interesting feature of this dam is the fish ladders allowing fish to migrate up stream. Underwater windows allows visitors to view native salmon and other migrating fish swim past the fish counters on their journey upstream to spawn. When juveniles migrate back to the Pacific they can use specially designed bypasses which seem to be the safest for the fish, as spillways and turbines tend to disorientate or injure them. Other measures to save the Salmon is to catch these juveniles up stream and transport them (give them a Lift) to below Bonneville dam by specially designed barges or tanker trucks. A lot of effort and ingenious projects including fish hatcheries is deployed to ensure the Salmon run is preserved for the future. I was very surprised to learn that all boats even the small private leisure boats can use these locks for free. It almost seems a complete waiste of time and resources to use such a huge lock only for a small one man ski boat, but they do.
Further upstream the town of Hood River is also known to the ideal conditions for windsurfing and kiteboarding.
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