West Coast - Day 13

We woke up early today as we had reservations on the Mount Hood Railway for 10:30am and the railway is about an hour outside of Portland. The train started boarding at 10:00am, which meant we had to leave by 9:00am, but since that is likely a busy traffic time, we tried to leave by 7:30 (giving us 1.5 hours to get through traffic and 1 hour to get to Hood River). We made it out by 7:50 and luckily for us, the GPS routed us north to Vancouver, WA and then east, so we skipped almost all the morning traffic and we made it to Hood River around 9:30am. We would have been there sooner, but there was an accident on the freeway that had traffic stopped and backed up for about 15 - 20 minutes.

The Mount Hood Railway is a small excursion railway that runs old passenger equipment up the Hood River. We purchased tickets in the air conditioned dome car, but I'm not certain that was actually necessary, as there were only 15 people on the train, and they didn't check your tickets or prevent you from moving between cars. The train takes a 1.5 hour trip to Parkdale, stops for an hour long lunch break and then makes the return trip. During the trip up, a narrator tells you all about the region, which is primarily full of apple and pear orchards. It was a very nice and relaxing trip up, though Xander, who has been desperate to go on a train ride our entire vacation, spent the entire time coloring on a piece of paper. As there is a switchback on the way up, for the first part of the journey, the engine actually pushes the train from the back, which felt a little bit weird.

We had lunch in a small park and let the kids run around and stretch their legs a little. I had hoped that would tire them out so they would nap on the return trip, but no such luck. It just made them tired and cranky, so we had to spend the return trip trying to keep them occupied. However, there was some fun for a railfan like me on the way down, as the railway does some light freight service in addition to the excursion runs and today they stopped in Odell to pick up three freight cars. The engine parked the dome car right where we could watch it pull ahead, back into the siding and pick up the freight cars. I watched as much as I could, given that Evan wanted to run around the train. Xander seemed to enjoy watching the engine as well.

The kids were extremely tired by the time we got back to Hood River, as Evan fell asleep before we made it back to the freeway and Xander did not last much longer. About halfway to Portland, there is a huge waterfall called the Multnomah Falls. You can see them from the freeway, and there is a large parking area in between the east and west bound lanes. We pulled in and parked and Sandra walked up to the falls to take pictures while I sat in the air conditioned car with the boys (as it was 30 degrees out and they were both asleep). She was gone for about half an hour and both boys woke up right when she got back. Evan immediately worked himself into a frenzy and we had to stop and calm him down before continuing on our way.

In Portland, we hit a little bit of stopped traffic, but nothing too horrible. We stopped at a Safeway to resupply before heading back to the hotel and ordering a pizza.