Road Trip – Omaha to Seattle – Day 14 – Portland, OR – September 24, 2010

Woke up, got some McD's breakfast (is this getting repetitive or what) and called the bank to basically get nothing done. They say I have to come in and fill out fraud paperwork to get some of the charges waived. Blah blah blah, whatever. I basically told her nicely that I was angry and the fees will eventually get waived, so why play these stupid games and waste my time. Oh well, though, nothing to really be done until the money is refunded back. Hopefully before I run out of money on my Discover card. Which isn't accepted at a lot of Oregon places. Sidenote: Oregon has 16% unemployment, there are bums everywhere! I've never seen anything like it! Also, full service gas stations are mandatory. No self service gas pumps, the station can get a $500 fine I guess.
Tom and I drove east on I-84 and got onto the Old highway area. The Columbia river gorge is well known for beauty and hikes and the Hood river area is one of the best places to wind surf and kite surf anywhere. We thought we'd need a little help to figure out what hike to do, and hopefully not get bad info like the angelina jolie ranger gave us before. We pulled off at a waterfall right off the road, it started with an M, I believe, but I'm too tired to look it back up right now. This place doubled as a National Forest Service information center and waterfall tourist attraction. I lied, I looked it up. It was Multnomah Falls. Very beautiful, with a bridge in the middle. We knew our hike would take awhile so we just shot some photos from the ground and called it good there. Anyway, we talked to the ranger, which again, was a beautiful, cool, young woman, and she recommended a hike that was 14 miles rountrip with several waterfalls along the way. The trail was called Eagle Creek and the destination on the trail was about 7 miles up and it was called Tunnel Falls.
It was a pretty good hike, only about 900 feet of elevation gain over 7 miles I believe, but a steady incline. Along the way was Punchbowl Falls and Loowit Falls, both were cool and unique. Punchbowl looked like water pouring out of a pitcher shaped like the Kool-Aid man was, and Loowit was a really flat wall of water like the ones in malls and stuff. The ascent was interesting as well, with really rocky parts, moos covered stones and trees, campsites along the trail, and we saw a blue and orange snake and a tadpole looking thing as well as some spiders and insects. Tunnel Falls was probably the coolest waterfall I've seen! It was awesome! The is literally a tunnel going behind the falls that you walk through, and the fall itself is very tall and has a lot of output. So beautiful. After some pics and standing there in awe, we started our descent. One of the few hikes either of us had done where the path up and down was the exact same. Usually, i've done a loop or taken another version of the trail or something. So we just high tailed it down. We stopped and sat by a smaller waterfall and ate a can a ravioli for lunch, but then booked it down the mountain. We made the whole 14 miles in about 5 hours. Pretty darn good time. So with the rest of our day decided to take the rest of the ranger's advice and go a bit further east to Hood River, OR. She said it was a cool mountain town and there were some good breweries.
By the time we got there, the tours had stopped for the day, but the tasting area/restaurant was open, so we had dinner. It was called Full Sail brewery. I ate a good andoullie sausage soup and had a Mediterranean hummus wrap with potato salad. It was really good. I tried three of their beers, Full Sail Amber, Session Black, and Sanctuary. We sat on the balcony outside and watched the sunset on the Columbia River. If I wasn't with a guy, it probably would have been a nice date place. But I was, so I just got a good buzz going and bought some souvenirs from the bar instead. We watched a little football at the bar and talked to guy working in Alaska who was on vacation by himself, and headed out. We decided the best course of action was to go back into Portland.
We got there and Tom wanted to try The Convention Center Inn, b/c the Motel 6 said it only had a smoking room left. Evidently there was a barbershop quartet convention at the center the next day. We pulled in and immediately got on the free rail service, called MAX, to downtown to have some drinks. Found a couple ok bars and went to the famous Voodoo Doughnut shop. I got a chocolate donut with chocolate frosting and cocoa puffs on top. Great snack. The next day we were by the place again and the line was down the block, so we had good timing and luck this night. Tom drug me into a strip club for a couple minutes before we called it a night, got back on MAX and got up to our room. It was gross. We didn't even wanna lay in the beds, so we got our money back and decided to risk it at the Motel 6 again. I am a huge Motel 6 proponent. I've stayed in many in the last couple years and they have a great standard and cheap rates pretty much everywhere you go. I've not been disappointed yet. We get there and the guy says they do have a non-smoking room now and we take it and pass out.