Hood River
Since we were nearing the end of our vacation we decided to
finish with a weekend in Hood River, neither one of us having been there before
and having heard rumors of the amazing riding. We arrived on Friday and it happened to be First Friday, so
we got our camp set up at Tucker Park and went out for a night on the
town. We wandered around the various
shops and ended up eating at a pizza and brewery place called Double
Mountain. Tiago liked the
Vaporizer, so we decided to try two of their other beers. They were okay, but definitely not
anything special. We had a pizza with
ginormous heirloom tomatoes of all different colors on them, definitely a
benefit to a longer growing season.
We then were directed by our server to the dessert place in town, Brian’s
Pourhouse. We walked up the hill
and found it, a very cute little converted house with outdoor seating that
would have been much more swanky in a big town, but in Hood River it seemed
okay to walk in with casual clothes.
And we are glad we did, since it was amazingly good food. We split the apple pie, Tiago got port
and I got some wine, and we enjoyed the cool ambience that the place put
out. There was an ice cream place
named Mike’s next door that we did not get to try and will have to put on the
list for next time.
Our first day of riding was Post Canyon/Seven Streams area,
so named because you cross over the stream as many times on the trail up. You end up in the Family Man staging
area, which is a really cool area with lots of obstacles to practice skills on
for riders of all ability levels, and I would love to spend more time there
practicing skinnies/straight line riding.
I don’t know why that’s so hard for me! We ran into some locals who informed us the map was really
outdated and gave us some recommendations, so we continued uphill to see what
fun we could find. It was rather
tricky to navigate, as the map was essentially useless because it listed trail
names, but the signs posted only the trail numbers, with a few exceptions. We went up 8 track and the boot, and
somehow ended up on GP and spaghetti (I think?) and eventually found our way
back to the car. It was getting
very crowded at this point and the trails were a little less flowy than we had
hoped, though with the recent rain they were nice and tacky.
That afternoon we took the dogs to the beach on the Columbia
River, where people were stand up paddleboarding, swimming and kayaking in the
warm water. Others were
worshipping the sun and enjoying what must have been an unually calm day,
wind-wise, for the town. We met a
local woman whose Vischla, Boone, Otis took a liking to, and she gave us all sorts of
recommendations for food.
Because my brake cable housing was starting to fray, we
stopped at the bike shop Dirty Finger to get some more housing and check out
the local bike scene. We ran into
a girl from North Vancouver that we had run into on the trail and chatted with
her and her husband a bit, and then headed to Pfriem for dinner.
After having tasted Pfriem beer in the past, both of us
could agree that they make a mighty good brew, so we put our name on the wait
list and Tiago ordered a strong blonde (if he only knew!) Belgain and I had a
blonde IPA. Both were
outstanding. Our pub food was also
surprisingly good, with a corn chowder that was not too creamy but made with
fresh vegetables and fries that were fried twice (Tiago knows his fries. . .)
For dinner we both had a fresh salad with local pears – yum!- and a blackberry
cobbler for dessert- It’s vacation, after all. . I was even impressed by their music-I think they stole my Ipod! Very satisfied with Hood River so far.
When we got back to the Airstream our friends from North Van
who were also staying in the same campground and had wandered over to say
hello. As I worked on my brakes we
all shot the shit and enjoyed hanging out, enjoying the common bond you seem to immediately get when
you meet other bikers.
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