Pacific Northwest; Day 6

Another beautiful morning and day! It was clear, sunny, and 59 degrees as we drove out of Madras, OR at 8:30. On the way north to Mt. Hood, however, it got even cooler than that. A short distance north of Madras there was a single, large, snow-capped peak on the horizon. I couldn't believe it was Mt. Hood already, but I had no idea what else it might be. Later, another snow-capped peak showed up on the horizon. A flag man at a construction zone told us which one was Mt. Hood. He said the other was Mt. Jefferson. According to our map, Mt. Jefferson is 10,497 feet tall and Mt. Hood stands at 11,240 feet.

Even further up Hwy 26 we got this view of Mt. Hood.
By this time we could barely see the mountain for the trees.

We turned off Hwy 26 to drive up to Timberline Lodge, which provided an excellent view of Mt. Hood and a beautiful smoky panorama of the surrounding area.

We had reservations at a motel in Gresham, OR, located just east of Portland and near the Columbia River Gorge, which we intended to explore. We arrived at our motel at 11:00 to do laundry before checking in. When I inquired at the front desk about visiting some waterfalls in the Columbia River Gorge I was informed that the area was under evacuation and the highway leading there was closed. After laundry was done we checked and, sure enough, the highway (I-84) was blocked.

So . . . . we had a change of plans. Instead of exploring the river gorge we had lunch at Shari's in Troutdale, OR (the marionberry pie was delicious) and took off for Seaside, OR, where we checked into our motel at 4:00. Chris did another load of laundry before we walked to the shore of the Pacific Ocean and enjoyed the hot tub at our motel.

We drove 214 miles today and saw a high temperature of 90. It was 67 when we arrived in Seaside, 62 when we walked to the beach.

To see all the photos taken today click on this link: Day 6 Photos

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