She's gone....

She’s gone…. This morning (really, really early) Sita had to go back to the Netherlands. Waking up before 6 am (and that’s a sunday morning) is not really my thing and saying goodbye for another ten weeks after having so much fun for a couple of weeks was not really a motivation to get up either. But hey, that’s life; so we drove to the airport at sunrise which offered an awesome view of Mt. Hood, one of the cascade mountain range’s volcanoes we had left less than twelve hours before.

Saturday we did the “Mt. Hood loop” a scenic route through the Columbia River Gorge, along the river, passing a couple of falls, historic landmarks and circling Mt. Hood with bypasses up the hill. We started off at Crown Point, a viewpoint with a fantastic view of the gorge. From there we visited Latourell falls, Wahkeena falls and Multnomah falls. At Multnomah we walked all the way up to the top of the fall where there was a great view. Of the river that is, because you could hardly see the fall itself. From there we moved on; saw the Bonneville Dam, the Bridge of the Gods and the Hood River village. Then we went up the hill to the Mt. Hood meadows and we arrived at Timberline Lodge at about 9 pm. That’s where we had dinner and when we came back outside we were surprised with the ultimately dark night sky. I don’t think I have ever seen so many stars…

The downside of the dark night was the ride down the hill. Deer along the road and only sight for as far the headlights of the car allowed us to see. We came home at about 11 pm and drank a bottle “goodbye-wine” with Martin and Angee, followed by a very short night, the ride to the airport, a double espresso on an empty stomach and unfortunately saying goodbye for real. Well, it’s only ten weeks, we’ll survive and it’ll give us something to look forward to.