We spent a delightful weekend with our daughter and her husband in Hood River, OR. The weather was perfect for early fall with cool mornings and evenings and warm days.
Our daughter had a wonderful itinerary planned for the weekend. We felt very well cared for and couldn’t have had a better time!
Hood River is about an hour drive east of Portland and, we found out, a major mecca for urban escape! We stayed at the Best Western right on the Columbia. I was armed with my Clorox wipes and took a swipe at every surface.
We started our adventure off by driving over an extremely scary and old truss bridge to the WA side. It opened in 1924 and is the second oldest bridge crossing the Columbia (a very big river) – it is pictured above.
Once my heart rate returned to normal, we found a good spot for a salad in White Salmon. From there we went to Syncline Winery in Lyle. We had been there before, but it is even more lovely now. Our daughter is a member and had reserved us a table in the garden for tasting. We enjoyed a great flight of wine! We, of course, added a couple of bottles to our stash, including a Maurvedre (red) and Picpoul (white).
That evening we had dinner on the deck of the hotel. We watched an incredible moon rise over the river and headed back to our room to rest up for Sunday.
Sunday morning, we took a hike on the path that runs along the river. It was fun to see fisherman out and get a taste of the wind that makes Hood River famous for wind surfing. After our hike, we took off for more exploring on the OR side of the river. We saw incredible vistas of Mount Hood at every turn.
We had an amazing experience drinking wine at the Phelps Creek tasting room! We had a lovely outdoor table and enjoyed a bottle of 2018 pinot gris and a 2019 bottle of Rose of Pinot Noir. On our way back to Hood River, we stopped at Fox Tail cidery for a cider flight. It was fun to taste some new ciders.
Our trip was capped off with a great dinner at Celilo in Hood River to celebrate 3 birthdays – our daughter, my husband, and our son-in-law. The special treat that night included chanterelle mushrooms and I had fresh tagliatelle with mine. Our son-in-law treated us to a magnum of bubbles from Syncline to top it all off. Overall, it was a wow!
Please check out my new Instagram account @travelswithallene for more photos of the trip!
It was a fantastic weekend and we were so happy to celebrate a milestone birthday with our daughter!
That being said, in retrospect I do have some COVID trepidation about the crowded hotel and the indoor dining on Sunday night. I knew then and we all know now that COVID can be transmitted through aerosolization, with indoor spaces and poor ventilation being a risk. I will be laying low for a bit to make sure we are still safe. Travel in the COVID era presents a new set of challenges, especially as we move into our rainy season making outdoor dining less feasible.
See you on Friday.
Allene
Travels with Allene 