Category Archives: travel

city, roadtrip, travel, USA

Portland

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We drove the extra fifty miles west to the outskirts of Portland last night as it was much more affordable to stay here than in Hood River. So with no riding planned today, we were free to explore the city a bit. Supposedley one of the greenest cities in the States with all its public transportation – we had to take the light rail in. It was pretty cheap (less than five dollars for an all-zone day pass), but gosh it seemed slow. Eventually we were deposited downtown & with good instructions from some loud-voiced (according to Valerie, at least) guy at the Visitor Center we set off walking to find the streetcar (trolley). With a brief stop at Powell’s (claiming to be the largest new & used bookstore in the world) second store, I then wandered in to the main store. This one takes up a whole block & four storeys – once I read that we had to runaway (“Runaway! Runaway!”) or else the whole day would have been wasted. It was a very pleasant walk around Nob Hill & all the nice old houses before we wandered up the hill to Washington Park. After a sobering time at the simple, poignant & effective Oregon Holocaust Memorial it was a short walk up to the International Rose Test Garden. Portland, as the Rose City, does have a mighty impressive lot of roses. Never have I seen a rose garden so large & so well visited – there were people everywhere. Another very nice place to sit down & eat our wraps for lunch.

A bit more wandering, riding the streetcars, checking out the riverside (they sure like bridges here – there were well too many crossing the river) & we ended up looking up at Portlandia. She’s the second biggest statue (of the kind) in the country.

She’s also up on the second or third floor, so bigger than she looks here.

We were exhausted from pounding all those pavements (‘sidewalks’ isn’t quite as alliterative) & the Max train was packed most of the way back out east. We had our usual dose of crazies on American public transport & a rather disturbing whitetrash domestic.

bikes, friends, GPS, MTB, roadtrip, travel, USA

Hood River

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With as many as fourteen dams on the length of the Columbia, it is now a surprisingly wide river. Just how wide, we begun to comprehend as we drove downstream towards Hood River yesterday. I do wonder just what it was like untamed when Lewis & Clark went down it & then later in Oregon Trail times. We were aiming to meet Miles – who was out kite-surfing with his brother – after lunch to go for a ride. That the Columbia is a good place for kiting & windsurfing was obvious as we saw an extensive windfarm nearby.

Yes, another poor picture taken from the passenger seat.

We weren’t too long in getting to Hood River & we ended up finding a lot of kites. As I’ve said time & time again on this trip – the river is very high this year. Consequently, the usual staging area & beach is well under water so everything was much closer to the parking lot. We happened upon the last of three days’ worth of kiting for cancer-research fundraising – so there was a good atmosphere around & over sixty kites out on the water. It was neat to watch a sport that I know little about & looks like great fun – the air that some of the boarders were getting was incredible. I’m not sure I’d ever be able to overcome the fear of a big gust of wind pulling my shoulder to pieces again.

While we waited, we sifted around town a bit looking in bookshops & eating pie (still not too sure what a marionberry is – but it tasted good). Eventually, we met up with Miles, crossed the river to Washington & went & met his brother Alan & Alan’s family. As time was limited for Alan, we went out on a short ride from their lot up in the hills. Starting with a little road-riding, it wasn’t long before we were in the forest. We basically climbed 350m on fireroads to get to the start of the singletrack down. The first section was absolutely sweet. Super dark in the dense forest (therefore, no dust this time) & a nice twisty, but flowy, trail that was super smooth to ride. Unfortunately, the middle section had been logged since the last time Alan & Miles had ridden it – so that was more boring. With an even twistier bit of singletrack to finish off, we were soon back at the trailer. Nice to get out & stretch the legs on a ride that wasn’t super long.

Mt Hood, the tallest mountain in Oregon, had been popping in & out of view all day – usually with an annoying cap of cloud sitting around. It’s really nice to see the mountain rising out of the lowlands – so here’s a snapshot.


family, food, history, roadtrip, travel, USA

Following (a bit of) the Oregon Trail

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Regrettably, as with a roadtrip, we had to leave Boise yesterday.  Maybe we caught it in its best light, but we really enjoyed our brief visit to Idaho & its capital. We were aiming towards Hood River – which is on the Columbia River – in central north Oregon, but didn’t want to do all the drive in one day so just pottered along.  Along the freeway we saw much more cropping, an old tumbledown cement factory at Lime, a still-operating cement factory (only one kiln though) just down the road & the return of the big trains.  We popped into Baker City, a town that had taken great delight in proclaiming from most Main St windows that some publication had voted it the most beautiful small town of America in a Best of the Road competition.

It was pretty nice & we spent a little while wandering the main street, reading plaques, looking in buildings & just enjoying the sunshine. There was also a big leafy park just down the road where we had another relaxing lunch. Further down the freeway & a bit east was the National Oregon Trail Interpretive Center – with time up our sleeves, it was well worth a look. Being the national center, it was far & away the most comprehensive display that we have seen yet on that mass-migration – we easily spent a couple of hours there reading & listening & pondering the hardship of the months endured & the landscape encountered (bits of which we’ve seen from the comfort of the car).

We’re clearly getting on in the trip as we opted for the nice easy route down I-84 instead of backroads through the hills. But there were still the Blue Mountains to get over (glad I wasn’t walking beside a wagon) before descending to the Columbia River plateau. It was clear we were back near a big river as more & more irrigation & nice looking fields popped up. Hermiston was a little off the freeway & a bit of a nothing town from what we could see (although it did have a gigantic WalMart distribution center on the outskirts – that must count for something), but it was a convenient place to rest for the evening. With a quick trip down to & across the Columbia River (quite a while since I last crossed that in Revelstoke, BC) we were in Washington – our third state for the day. The river is of course really high & we were impressed by the volume (in both senses) of the water pouring through the spillways at McNary dam.

Back in Hermiston, we struggled to find anywhere to eat dinner. But we struck a jackpot when we came across the Pheasant Cafe. Apparently more of a dance/clubbing venue later in the evening (it was a large complex), the restaurant was empty when we went in & the only guy working it was rather spookily named Brandon! He was super friendly & really interested in where we’ve come from (particularly Australia) & he cooked a mean prime rib.

bikes, city, GPS, MTB, roadtrip, travel, USA

Boise

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All yesterday’s activity induced a fantastic night’s sleep for me & it was late in the morning before we got downtown on another clear, sunny day. Set in a beautiful park, we were happy to spend a couple of hours at the Idaho State Museum to see if we couldn’t discover a bit more about this state that we hadn’t really intended to visit (I think we are both really glad that a ride, of all things – imagine that, induced us to duck east from the Pacific states). I won’t bore you with the history of a state that most of you won’t visit – but nonetheless I found it interesting. We got another good dose of Lewis & Clark history – which we got a lot of at the start of the trip.

After lunching in a nice big leafy park & wandering through a decent rose garden we headed to the historic area of downtown. We didn’t find many old buildings, but did manage to find the Basque Center. Apparently, Boise has the second largest Basque population in the States – after Bakersfield, CA, of all places. Eventually we made it to the Capitol building. Not overawing from the outside (I think the dome looks too skinny), the interior is fantastic.

It’s been recently restored & all the (Alaskan) marble inside it just great. Unlike other Capitols we’ve been in, the walls are remarkably free of portraits & other such things – this suited the place very well. Looking up, I really wanted to be going up the little spiral staircase to the top of the dome. But that wasn’t open to the public of course. With the best display about the state we’ve seen in a Capitol & not many people around, it was a great visit.

Always keen to get another ride in, there was only time & energy for a short one close to town. Miles had told me of one starting on the road to Bogus Basin (what a great name for a ski-area) just out of the suburbs. Corral Trail started with more climbing than I was expecting, but it was mostly doubletrack & not too bad. A local guy snuck up behind me, told me I was riding well & then proceeded to beat the pants off me the rest of the way up. But Bernie was great, he changed his ride to make sure I got the bonus mile on the end of Bob’s Trail that is not so easy to find. The first half or so of the downhill was on Corral & it was fast & flowy. There were plenty of little jumps – these irritated me for a while as they weren’t quite right for the speed I was going, I kept touching the front wheel down first (just). I finally figured out that loading up the front fork just on approach made life much better, I was pretty happy from then on.

Bob’s Trail started out much the same as it followed a gulch all the way down to suburbia. But one had to be careful around blind corners, as pesky rocks would suddenly jump out & plant themselves in the side of the trail. More technical, this trail was most enjoyable – even if I had to walk down a few metres (still have that fear of ending the riding component of this trip early doing something stupid). Skirting around between a golf course & some really nice houses we were all done an hour after I set off. What a great ride for only an hour’s worth of effort & so close to the city too (the trail map & markings were great – there looks like there’s quite a network of trails to be explored up there).

Driving back to the hotel through central Boise, I though I recognised a bike on top of a Cayenne at the lights. Sure enough, we’d caught up to Miles – strange parallels with our first random meeting in Fruita. We had a quick chat at the hotel before he headed to Oregon. Any energy I burnt on the ride was soon regained – we went to a nice Basque restaurant for dinner. How are they not all fat? I was more full from that meal than I have been for ages – & that’s considering all those large portions we’ve been served.