Mt. Adams and the Columbia River Gorge

We finally had some fun that is worthy of a blog post! We drove way down to Portland, OR, then west then back north again to get to Trout Lake and some fun in the snow around Mt. Adams. Due to the crappy weather we have had (there is virtually no snow on the west coast this winter, as I'm sure you have gathered from the Olympics) we had to drive high to get some fluff. The snow is a bit soggy, but it is snow! So we drove and drove and drove and met up with Erik at the hotel we picked out - a great place with sweet potato waffles included with the price of the room. Can't go wrong with that!

In the morning we got up, gorged on waffles, and headed up into Gifford Pinchot National Forest (Mt. Adams) to get in some x-country skiing! We had to chain up our tires for the first time ever and this made the guys proud of themselves. They were so proud that Tinkerbell (our Matrix) became invincible! Nothing could stop us! Except, wet and soft snow. So, invincible Tink got stuck. We just laughed - there was no point in getting worried with the five million giant trucks around us that trailered up snowmobiles on the road. A few nice dudes from the town arrived (it must have been our laughter) and helped dig us out with shovels. I joked around that our accelerator got stuck and we had to drive into the soft snow to stop the car (yes, our new car is on the recall list).

Proud men and chained-up Tinkerbell

Laughing men try to dig us out with an excellent shovel, the umbrella!

Grand fir

This is really why we came here! Gorgeous!

The next day we drove toward Portland, OR and stopped at all the waterfalls along the Columbia River Gorge. It was soggy out, but that never stops us waterproof humans. Look at the waterfall closely - just to the left of the falls is a white dot. That's Jay and his jeans. What a GORGEOUS place. Wow, we were all blown away by the lush forests and the waterfalls.

View from under Ponytail Falls

Who is coming to visit?