It's Hard to Miss, The Mighty Mountain, and Many Ways to Enjoy It

Every year for the last five years we've taken our grandkids on a week-long summer trip.  It has become known as the "Harvey" trip, because we usually rent an RV (get it? RV = Harvey!).

But this year we changed things up a bit, and rented a house in Hood River for a week.  Actually, it's near to Parkdale, on the northern slope of Mount Hood.  

This is a shot of the grandees, on the fence near our Airbnb house.  

The view here from the house is fantastic, and everywhere you look, Mt Hood fills the sky.  What a sight!  Many of the pictures in this blog post contain that compelling image of the mountain. 

There are lots of things to do here, and we've been busy.  In fact, we like to stay busy when we travel  - and trying to keep these little ones entertained, active, and eventually worn out - is a challenge.

Today was great and started out with a morning hike in the woods along a river.




Then before lunch we went to the nearby town of Parkdale, where there is a park with a stage where the kids could horse around.  In fact, there was a statue of a horse there, including a little girl as part of the statue ... interesting. 

  
After lunch, Fiona wanted to visit what turned out to be a rather amazing lavender farm, with more views of ... you guessed it, Mt Hood.

I also captured this picture of Fiona through the window of a shed at the lavender farm, I thought it was a cool view.  It was pretty windy. 

Later in the afternoon, we made our way down to the river, in this case, the mighty Columbia River. On the way there we were blessed with the view of another mountain.  

This was not Mount Hood, although admittedly it looks kinda similar - it was Mount Adams, on the other side of the river in Washington State.  It brought back memories of mine: I climbed to the top of Mt Adams about 20 years ago with my son Lewis and several other friends.  It's actually slightly taller than Mr Hood.

The setting for all this is nothing short of spectacular.  The Columbia River cuts a deep gorge on its way to the Pacific Ocean, and along the way the Hood River flows in, along with many other rivers such as the Deschutes, the John Day, and further upstream, the Snake River.   And in Portland, the Willamette River also joins the party. 

And no mention of Hood River (the town) would be complete without a view of the plethora of wind surfers and kiteboarders and other forms of water borne adventure on the windy Columbia.