Day 18 - More of God's Wonders!

Captain's Log - Day 18 - Wondrous Creation

We got our oil changed today. The folks were very helpful, but ohh was it expensive. I guess when you are bumped to the front of the line in a shop you have to pay for it.

In Bend, OR, you can see some pretty spectacular mountains to the west. If fact, there is an entire mountain range that is snow covered of various sizes. Dawn wanted to stop at a Target store to pick up a new comb [she left hers at a hotel a couple days ago and simply couldn't go on without one... go figure. Makes no sense to me, but somehow, a lady needs a comb! So I stopped.] and while she was in the store, I hiked across the street and off into a field with piles of fill dirt/concrete, etc. and got several shots of the range of mountains. Tourists!

About 60 miles north of Bend, OR, we came to a scenic overlook. The area didn't look like much so I almost didn't stop, but the signs made it sound like something nice - besides, I wanted a really good look at the snow covered mountain range [never get enough pictures of snow capped mountains, I say!].

What a surprise this stop turned out to be. In fact, there were signs along the parking area telling us to leave our pets in the car. No pets were supposed to be withing 70 yards of the gorge because many dogs have died from jumping over the edge. Hmmm... "There might be more to this stop than meets the eyes!" I thought.

This was the Crooked River Gorge which was carved over 300 feet deep! The placards along the walkway talked about the difficulties of building bridges over the gorge and had some old pictures of the building process. Impressive!

The picture above, is the railroad bridge that was build in the early 1900's. This picture is one of the original photos of the men building the bridge. Due to railroad wars of the day, they were in constant danger of night raids, vandalism, getting shot, and random explosives. Some of the natural challenges they had to overcome was the depth and width of the gorge. In order to get up and down to set the iron, they used rope ladders. Here is a picture of a bunch of them climbing one along the side of the gorge. Yeah, right! How would you like to be one of these guys? I think I'll stick with teaching music, thank you! One of the other pictures they had was these guys walking a "plank" across a 15' (or thereabouts) span across the two sides of iron works before closing the gap between them... NOT THIS KID!

We crossed another desert on our way to Mt. Hood and Dawn made me use our "neck coolers". They are little gel filled bandanna type things that hikers use to stay cool. [Yes, she read about them online from other motorcyclists that said they helped keep you cool in hot weather riding!] You soak them in water and their little gel beads retain the water. As they are soaking up the water, you can refrigerate them too. So we have kept them in a zip lock bag expecting to use them as we crossed Nevada. Of course, as we were riding through hail in Nevada, we didn't need to stay any cooler! So this was the first time we used them for a long distance and they really did work well!

Then as we approached Mt. Hood, OR, there came a point when we didn't really need them any more. Can you guess why? Haha! Snow again!

We watched the mountain for over an hour as we cruised across the desert. It is mammoth! Truly, it dwarfs the other huge mountains in the area! I kept wanting to stop for pictures, but Dawn finally asked me, "Don't they all begin to look the same after a while?"

But every turn brings a new view that is different! In the end, we rode on without stopping for many pictures. And honestly, yes, the pictures do begin to look similar. But they are sooooo majestic!

They are still skiing on Hood and we found out that it is the second most climbed mountain in the world second only to Mt. Fuji! From where I took this picture, some of the extreme climbers can literally RUN to the summit in three hours then run back down in less than two. CRAZY! It would take me days to do the same!


This is the historic Timberline Lodge, on Mt. Hood, OR. It was build during the depression by men and women of the WPA (Works Progress Administration). Incredibly, they completed this massive project in just 18 months! Not only building the structure, but hand carving wood throughout, blacksmithing all of the ironwork, hooking their own rugs, weaving their own material, hand fashioning their own furniture, etc.!

This was a really cool stop! Rooms are actually pretty reasonable, starting at $125 per night. Not bad for the location, eh? No, we didn't stay there but we truly thought about it!


I couldn't help another stop and look at this majestic mountain. It is one of the volcanic mountains in the area and one day, Mt. Hood could explode again because it is still active. Mountain climbers have come across its bald spot (an area that never collects snow because of how hot is stays - that area has been dubbed "The Devil's Kitchen") and actually had the bottoms of their boots melt due to the hot rocks they are standing on. And there was a mountain climber that was overcome by the sulfuric fumes and subsequently died because of it! It is still active indeed.

After a nice, winding ride through the forest and along various rivers on Rt 35, we crested a hill and saw a huge body of water out in front of us - it ended up being the Columbia River! IT WAS HUGE! Way bigger than we ever dreamt it would be. So we made our way along the gorge and enjoyed the scenery, but were nearly blown off the bike! The wind was crazy!!!! We were driving into a tremendous headwind at 60mph that made me feel like we were running at 115 mph!

We pulled off on the historic drive next to I-84 to see the waterfalls. Definitely worth our time for two reasons: Get a break from the wind and to see some really cool waterfalls. This one was the Horsetail Falls.

This is the Multnomah Falls. God simply has a way of carving really cool things into His creation that awe and inspire us. His work is GREAT!

That is the state of Washington across the Columbia River. We should be able to cruise around that area tomorrow. We plan to stay in the area exploring for a day before moving on.

My question for you... what should Captain Lizardhead do about his crazy hairdo? I have already gotten one suggestion. Any others?

Until tomorrow, God bless you guys!