Mt. Adams, Washington

[pdedse]

After 3 hours of house painting this morning, it was time to go for a ride. Felt like searching out a new area and wanted to get relatively close to Mt. Adams (Washington), as I've never really explored the area much--there are not a a lot of paved roads that get you very close. Glenwood would do today.

To get to where I wanted to see, I took fast I-84 east and crossed into WA at Bridge of the Gods, then east on hiway 14 to hiway 141. Once I started heading north on 141, nearly all the traffic subsided and it was easy going to BZ Corner. Then east by northeast to Glenwood. The forest started opening up and Mt. Adams came into view...

A few miles south of Glenwood

It was about 330, so time for a coffee and pastry at the Glenwood country store

Then took very fun Canyon Road back towards the Columbia River. Lovely curvy roads non-stop for 25 miles...

Back at I-84 at The Dalles, I could have taken it back to Gresham and been home in a little over an hour, but I knew my wife would be working late this eve, so no rush to get home.

Crossed the creek and took 197 south to Dufur. It's always kind of shocking to cross over to the dry side of Oregon. Mt. Hood looms in the distance

I like cemetaries and this was Dufur's

I've told me wife and kids that I'd prefer to be cremated rather than buried when I exit this world, but if I wanted to be buried, the Dufur Cemetary would not be a bad spot, nice and tidy with great views

At Dufur, straight west towards hiway 35 and Mt. Hood...very fun run, beautiful fruit farms and cattle ranches, until you climb back into the forest

Mt. Hood viewed from White River area...will be snow capped again shortly

And back home by 730pm. About 230 miles.

 

[Cormanus]

Looks like an excellent ride, pdedse. Two good looking mountains in one day. Nice work.

 

[the Ferret]

Indeed a great looking ride

 

[pdedse]

Thanks...seems I have to ride farther and farther to get to new-to-me areas, but WA and OR never seem to disappoint.

Every time I do a ride, I try to appreciate the beauty of the Northwest to the full as my wife and I are edging closer to retirement days, which for us, may involve a relocation. We moved to OR 25 years ago from Arizona and we always thought we'd go back one day. Well, "one day" is now around December 2025, and my wife really wants to return to AZ (north of Tucson) to get away from the OR winters which neither of us like. But the OR summers are sublime, and the riding here is crazy good...the OR coast, the forests, the small farm countrysides, the mountains, the eastern deserts, the rivers, all so scenic and traffic is easily avoided.

And our plan still involves splitting time between the U.S. and Costa Rica where she is from. We don't know whether that will be a 6/6 month split, or 2-3 here and 9-10 there or viseversa. So we can work it out to avoid OR winters and we can avoid AZ summers. She's in love with the idea of retirement communities that offer lots of protection because we'd be gone for months on end. We go back and forth on all the possibilities...our son lives in Portland, our daughter in San Diego and those logistics figure into the equation. Interesting considerations.

But all that is heavily on the mind each time I go riding...are my NW outings coming to an end? There is lots of interesting riding in AZ and in CR...but lots of change coming our way.