Monday 7/26 Old Rt 30, Fruit Loop

Wow, it was a hot one! It hit 104 by mid afternoon! Today was a mixed bag of successes. We headed west on I-84 to Corbett where our plan was pick up old Rt 30 and head back east to visit the waterfalls on the "Old Columbia River Highway". We first came to Latourelle Falls which offers a nice little hike to a very high waterfall.  The next waterfall would be the famous Multnomah Falls. It was closed! Not just the falls, but the road itself! We're sure it was due to Covid-19 since that area draws huge crowds. We had seen indications on the highway signs that it was closed but we chose not to believe it. Vista House was also closed. So, we had to get back on I-84 and continue east.

We continued to Cascade Locks where we enjoyed our lunch in a very nice city park near the marina and the dock where the cruise ship departs (we did the dinner cruise on that boat once). After our lunch break we crossed the river on the famous Bridge of the Gods and continued east on Rt 14 on the Washington side. We crossed back over when we got to Hood River and started our other goal of the day, the "Fruit Loop".

The "Loop" is a route of about 30 miles which runs south on Rt 35 to Parkdale and then turns north on Rt 281 back to Hood River. According to the tourism bureau map there are some 29 orchards, wineries and fruit stands that one might visit. The map wasn't very good so we couldn't find some places. Other places were not open, for various reasons, others were pretty crappy looking and probably shouldn't have been on the list. The nicest place was the first one we came to, the White House. Beautiful flower gardens. We bought a few peaches. 

Another nice stop was the Hood River Lavender Farm and Winery. A not so nice place was the Mountain View Orchards. Nevertheless, we got some beautiful cherries.

An interesting aside - one can get disoriented with Mount Hood to the south and Mt Adams to the north. They look the same, cinder cones with snow on the upper reaches. At some points along our drive you could see both at the same time!

We returned to Hood River, stopped for ice cream (well, it was 104!), got back on I-84 to Rowena, where we once again found old Rt 30 which took us into The Dalles.

After a cool-off in our motel room, we had nice Mexican dinner at Casa el Miradore.

Tomorrow we look for a "scenic route"to Pendleton, which isn't very far. They say it will be cooler!