A road trip to the desert through the mountains

Newton came from the desert. Madras, Oregon to be exact. We went east through the city and past Sandy and over Mt. Hood. Over the Deschutes River, over the plains and into the hot, dry, and lumpy desert. He was born at a little shelter smaller than Caroline County's, on July 4th. A couple of weeks ago we took a preliminary trip to Madras to meet him. We left very early in the morning to ensure that we were the first to arrive on the day he was able to be adopted. The drive took about 3 hours. We didn't have much time to stop on the way there. However, once we had met him and claimed him and put our name on a little piece of paper stating that he was ours and that we could pick him up in a week, we headed back to the city. We had the whole afternoon to explore our route home.

We had passed a sign that said "Timberline Lodge." That's right, the hotel that they used for the establishing shots for The Shining. Awesome. So we decide that would be a fun detour. We stopped and had our lunch of Munchies and gummy worms in the parking lot. Then we hiked around for a bit and explored the lodge. We decided that if anyone visits and wants to go skiing, we don't care how expensive it is, we are going there.


Although it was August and about 80 degrees outside, people were skiing on natural snow. They were snowboarding in T-shirts. Mount Hood is a little over 11,000 feet above sea level. At that height, snow does not melt for some magic reason and it makes for beautiful skylines. When it's not cloudy in Portland, only about four months out of the year, you can see Mount Hood from almost anywhere in the city. It's all snowy and lovely. Everyone should come visit so they can see some amazing scenery. I took way too many pictures, so I picked a few of my favorites.

Mt. Hood

Persie does not like to wake up early.

Coming down from the mountains and starting to see the plains.

Little ranch house.

A little cluster of snowy mountains.

A canyon. 

Crossing the Deschutes.

Getting into the desert, you can still see the snow caps.

Awesome ridge that is much larger than it looks.

Layers

Passing through Warm Springs. They like tee-pees.

And coming back towards Portland.

Chucking a bad peach.

Take that nature!

Climbing Mount Hood up to the Timberline Lodge.

Let's go skiing!

Persie is ready for a hike! 

Amazing views.

Really great little trail around the edge of the forest.

If you have ever wondered, "Where did all of the bees go?"
They have all gone up to the mountains.

Timberline Lodge

Also known as the Overlook Hotel from The Shining.

Pretend the cars are snow and you can see it.

I don't know what mountain that is.

Snow under the trees.