Shakedown Cruise: It Cleared Up!

We woke up to a beautiful sunny morning. Our first task was to see if we could hook up to the sewer system, which we did with ease – no worrying about filling the gray water tank for us! We decided not to use the marble-raceway sewer line bridge thingies and felt we had made a good decision. After fighting a bit with the on again, off again internet (it only works if you put your phone down and don’t look at it) we were able to find a nice hike from the campground to Horsetail Falls. The hike goes through areas that were burned during the fire in 2017, and it was interesting to see how things are recovering. We’re still in the wet part of the Columbia Gorge, where you need to work to keep things from growing, and the underbrush is very dense and green, but also very low – not much above knee

height. Many of the trees along the trail are scorched, and one of the trail signs we saw had been half burnt up. The trail is exceptionally well marked, with signs everywhere. That’s helpful since there are no maps of the trail. The trail is also very, very narrow, hugging the side of a steep grade, but we had our sticks so it didn’t make me nervous – much. It was a perfect temperature for hiking, and although you can always hear the I-84 traffic and the occasional train, it’s also very peaceful. And until we got to the trail from the parking area to the waterfall, we were the only people on the trail.

The trail (gorge trail #400, in case you’re wondering) runs into the Horsetrail falls trail about halfway between the lower and upper falls, and we decided to go to the upper falls first. There were more people on the trail and it was much wider. We were walking along and then I could hear the falls, before we came around a corner and saw them – they’re amazing, a long plume of water gushing out of a sheer cliff of basalt.

AND, the trail goes behind the falls, so you can stand under a ledge of basalt and watch the water come down. Lovely! We walked up the trail a bit, and then headed to the lower falls, which are also lovely and which cascade down into a pool that you could wade or swim in if you wanted. On the walk back we took a slightly different path through the day use part of the park, which is shorter and less hilly than the way we went out. It was a perfect morning. The weather was so fine, with a gentle breeze and around 74 degrees. We had some lunch out on the picnic table, highlighted by some strawberries we brought with us and chips and hummus.

After lunch it was very tempting to just settle into the recliners, but we managed to fight our way clear of them and headed into Cascade Locks. Dave thought he’d found a trail that started around the Bridge of the Gods – did I mention that the BotG is barely two lanes wide and has NO pedestrian walkway, but is part of the Pacific Crest Trail? Like you’re supposed to walk on it and share the lane with giant tractor-trailer trucks? – Anyway, a trail that started near there and meandered along the river. It turned out not to exist, but we had a very fun walk through Cascade Locks down to the Marine Park which is where the original Cascade Locks were, and also Thunder Island with its two wedding venues, and of course a boat launch and marina and the boarding place of the Sternwheeler Columbia Gorge, which we will go on tomorrow. We walked all around Thunder Island (which sounds so much better than the name we think it should be called, which is goose poop island), including being told we were trespassing when we crossed beyond some cones at the eastern tip. There are cherry trees growing at the eastern end which we tried a few of – they were ok but not great.

We found a map!

On the way to Marine Park we passed by the Eastside Drive-in, which has soft serve ice cream which we thought we might get some of on the way back in honor of family in SF. But it turns out that a) due to COVID they are only doing drive-up, no counter or walk-up window service and 2) they are hugely popular and had a huge line. So instead we walked back to the car and drove back to camp, where we did some major relaxing and also tried out the shower. I have a lot of hair to wash.

Bonus photo from Thunder Island. 

Back into C.L. for dinner. On the way we parallel old highway 30, parts of which have been turned into a bike trail. We think it might be fun to bring bikes sometime. I wonder if Eastside would serve us if we biked thru? Dinner was at Thunder Island Brewing, which looks sort of sterile and humdrum but turned out to be delightful. For one thing, they’ve combined scan-and-order online with cheerful, friendly service in a way that really works (and lets me order lots of small beers). For another thing, the big open dining space has lots and lots of windows so even though we didn’t get to eat on the patio it still felt like being outside – and outside is beautiful, overlooking (underlooking?) the BotG. Dave had a reuben with kimchee instead of sauerkraut and delicious fries that Jen and I would both love, and I had a yummy salad with perfectly cooked salmon. My salad was interesting because it had beets AND golden raisins AND candied walnuts, which would normally be too much sweet, but the dressing was nice and acidic to balance it out. So good stuff. They even had a low-IBU IPA that I liked.

Back to the trailer for reading/knitting/relaxing/listening to trains, and also making and sitting by a nice campfire. We brought some DVDs but I don’t know if we’ll get to them. There is a lot to do!