While the rest of the country has seen record heat all summer, we’ve had a particularly cool season again this year. We had originally planned on heading down the Columbia River Gorge this weekend to Memaloose State Park where we’d be dry camping, but when we saw that temperatures where predicted to hit triple digits, we decided to book a place at a local park that had electrical hookups….air conditioning!!! We had never used our AC before, and we were actually anxious to give it a try.
McIver State Park is just 15 minutes up the road from our house. Although it was an hour and a half away from Hood River, where we had planned to spend some time this weekend we decided the drive would be worth it if we could stay comfortable and cool. We are used to temperatures in the mid 70’s and we literally wilt when the temps rise above 90. We’re just not acclimated to those temperatures…is anybody really???
We got the only open reservation in the park. Apparently the weekends are booked months ahead, so someone must have canceled when they saw the forecast…lucky for us!
The little town of Hood River is about 90 miles from McIver Park, but it’s a beautiful drive over the mountain pass, so we didn’t mind a bit. Fueled up with our favorite breakfast on Mt. Hood, we opened the sunroof, turned up the music and enjoyed the afternoon drive. It also gave us a chance to scout out some new campgrounds near Cooper Spur on the other side of the mountain.
This weekend Rasmussen Farms in Hood River was hosting a Van Gogh Sunflower Festival. We’ve been there before and it was a lot of fun! I love sunflowers and was hoping to get some pretty photos. We pulled up at high noon, and in typical Gorge style, the wind was howling and the temperatures were already above 100. The wind made taking photos difficult, as the flowers wouldn’t hold still and cooperate! We still had fun walking through the fields and admiring the large varieties of flowers they harvest.
Old Motel Chairs someone had fun with…gotta get me a set!
Love the yellows against the blue sky!
This little display is always set up for the seasons…
Just makes you smile!
They also have other flower gardens as well
Summer harvest
Van Gogh
Hood River is known for it summer cherry crop!
The giants
Rasmussen Farms
Small one in the land of giants
cinnamon
We spent less time at the farm than we would have liked, but it was just too hot. We headed to the little town of Mosier, located between Hood River and the Dalles for a drink and some snacks. There is a little cafe in Mosier that we always thought looked interesting called the Thristy Woman – The food was mediocre but the view was fantastic.
Dining with a view!
Thirsty Woman Cafe
Ice Cream Stop
We arrived back to camp during the early evening. Too hot to sit outside, we retreated into the Bambi to enjoy the AC. I’m happy to report that our unit had no problem cooling our tiny space. We don’t spend a lot of time inside the Airstream during the summer, but the hot weather gave us an opportunity to drop in a DVD and begin the Hatfield and McCoy Series we’d been wanting to watch.
Walk to lake at sunset and stumbled upon this little guy
Before the sunset
No campfire this night…good movie though!
It was a nice day!
The (not so) Small Small Trailer 
Great photos; What a beautiful area you live in. I especially like the rich color in the Van Gogh sunflower and the picture with the light reflections on the side of the Airstream. Several years ago during a visit to Portland we took a day trip around Mt. Hood, stopped in Hood River for an ice cream cone, then on to Multnomah Falls, and finally caught the sunset at the Crown Point Promontory. It was one of my favorite day trips ever. Your photos bring back great memories.
LikeLike
The gorge is a really pretty area – I never tire of it! I hope if you ever come back through, you’ll let us know! Would be fun to meet up. Wish we were able to go the the rally in Colorado.
LikeLike
Kim,
I’m going to guess that your Bambi has the same AC unit as our 28′ does, 13,500 watts. This unit does NOT cool our AS sufficiently when the temp is 3 digits. AS now uses a 15,000 watt AC for units our size. Please ask the weather gurus to lower the high temps to the upper 80’s for September when we get there. After living in South Carolina for 30 years and travelling through the Midwest for much of July we are definitely tired of the heat. I again loved the photos, especially since they are of Hood River which you recommended to us to stay.
LikeLike
No worries, Frank…you can pretty much count on nice weather while you’re here. It really doesn’t get much better than Oregon in September. And, even if it does get warm, which the Gorge does at times, it cools down nicely at night. This weekend was our first time even hitting 90 in a year…just so happened that it flew right past 90 to 102. Yuck!
LikeLike
Oh Kim, I am absolutely in love Love LOVE with your photography! The bright colors make me so happy and “feel good.” I love the shots from the farmer’s market and the sunflowers and little “Bambi,” and well — I could go on 🙂 xoxo
LikeLike
They make me happy too, Monica…Think it has something to do with the fact that we both live in the PNW 😉 That’s why I always enjoy your photos so much!
LikeLike