Columbia Gorge

“Hmm, not too bad,” I said to myself when I looked at the weather forecast this morning.  It predicted a chance of rain between 10 and 11 with just cloudy skies the rest of the day.  But by 8:30 the rain had started and didn’t stop.

We stayed at Rose Villa in the morning to sing in the first rehearsal of the choir Andrea and Miranda had organized.  We had over 40 voices.  I’ve sung around the campfire and at church, but the last time I was in a choir was in sixth grade, before my voice changed.  But pretty soon I was having fun along with everyone else.  We’ll miss two rehearsals, but unless we get delayed by weather somewhere we’ll be back for the one after that.

Tired of I-205, we drove east to Sandy before heading north to the freeway at Troutdale.  By the time we entered the gorge, the rain was hard and steady.  The gorge was beautiful as it always is, and the traffic in the gorge was heavy as it usually is.  Today through the rain we could see clouds sitting on top of the hills, with tatters of the clouds hung up in the trees below.

We stopped at Starvation Creek.  We were still in the lush, rainy gorge.

Presumably the ‘honor men’ were prisoners.

The rain let up when the gorge opened up east of Hood River, and the traffic let up marginally, too.  Usually I’ve been through the gorge in the summer when everything is green, or the winter when things are white and black, but today it was wet black basalt with bright yellow grass and deep orange trees.  A pretty time of year.

(No good pictures, though.  That’s a tough highway to stop on for pictures.)

We’re staying in The Dalles tonight.  This is usually our first break of the day, but this trip it is the end of the day.  It positions us to get to Boise tomorrow night to see Andrea’s brother Paul.