Blogs from Mount Hood, Oregon, United States, North America

Went to Government Camp to visit Mt. Hood Visitor Center to collect brochures and tour museum. Had some time before going to the airport to pick up Marcus and Faith so we drove up to Timberline Lodge, known as the people's lodge. All of the wood was hand hewn by public workers into a monumental masterpiece and dedicated by FDR in 1937. Went to find Trillium Lake but was no parking available. It was Saturday and very crowded. Marcus and Faiths flight was delayled and will not be arriving until tomorrow afternoon. Day 38 Found the deal of the trip.....breakfast for $4.00. I mean eggs, pancakes, homefries, and choice of bacon or ham. This was at Zigzag Mountain Cafe, you guessed it, in Zigzag, Or. Faith and Marcus finally made it after lunch. After dropping their ... read more

Shortly after leaving Bend we stopped at Smith Rock State Park. The write ups made it sound like a popular place for rock climbing. It's apparently a pretty new park with a yurt as a visitors center...interesting story, just ask me about it. Anyway, gorgeous rock fromation and hiking trails...worth the stop. To the north of the park is a development for millionaire horse ranchers. They have donated $5M for the park's development. Further up OR 97 was Crooked River Gorge and railroad bridge. Then Crooked River National Grasslands recreation area. We're headed for Mt. Hood Timberland restaurant for lunch. We plan to stop there for lunch in the historic lodge. The closer we got the colder and cloudier it got. By the time we reached the lodge we could hardly see the snow plows working ... read more

Today’s excursion took us up Mt Hood to the Timberline Lodge. Since we did not get to do it yesterday, we took the Grand Tour today. Some of you may already be familiar with the Timberline Lodge, the exterior appeared in the opening of the movie “The Shining” where Jack Nicholson and family drive up to The Overlook Lodge. Timberline Lodge was built in 1936 by Roosevelt’s WPA program. The Lodge is also known as the “People’s Lodge” as it was hewn by public workers into a monumental masterpiece of beautiful paintings, wood sculptures, mosaic glass, carved linoleum, stone and iron. The average age of the workers was 56. They were unemployed, desperate artists who were grateful to have the opportunity to contribute their skills to this monumental project. The huge timbers and gigantic boulders came ... read more

Chicago has a great skyscape. It's just fun to walk through downtown and see the different vistas: along the river, along the boulevards, across the plazas. And the thing that absolutely makes it is the different eras of architecture jumbled together. Most of the old buildings have been torn down, but enough remain to seed the skyline with a fertile counterpoint. The new skylines of Asia, where every high-rise has been built in the last twenty years, show the sterility of an all-new city. One of the greatest Chicago buildings of any era is the Reliant Building. Unfortunately, at street level it was always disfigured by a discount wig shop with a gaudy sign, which drew attention away from the elegant architecture of the upper stories. But now the Hotel Burnham has taken over the ground ... read more

Lost Lake & Mt Hood Being wanderers, it is easy to get distracted by what might be around the next corner. On a whim, we followed the signs to Lost Lake. Some of the most beautiful postcard pictures of Mount Hood are taken from Lost Lake and neither of us had ever been. The road is narrow and winds around without many turnouts, but in remarkably good condition. We saw a magnificent display of rhododendrons - I don't ever remember them being so beautiful and healthy in July! We also ran into a lot of wild berries and Oregon Grape (Oregon's state flower) and aromatic cedar. Arriving at the lake, we were ill prepared for the volume of humanity at the lake! It is a very busy place. We had driven as far as we did, ... read more