On the afternoon of the fourth class day, my attendees needed to break early, and so I am going to take that opportunity to drive over towards Mt. Hood to see what I can see. I have never been to Mt. Hood before (although I drove through Portland with Tony Hirsch in 1979). It may be a while before I get back here again, so I am off to the mountain. (NOTE: As it turned out, it was only five months later that Fred and I made a vacation trip back to this area, and we certainly saw Mt. Hood up close and personal.)
I left the office of GVNW in Tualatin and went just a little bit south on Interstate 5 to pick up Interstate 205 around the east side of Portland. I took movies exclusively this afternoon, never getting close enough to get a real portrait of Mt. Hood. I am going to key the movies to the map here and the aerial view you will see later on.
My first movie (taken at location #1 on the map) just shows you the typical countryside outside of Portland as we head down the highway, and you can watch that movie with the player at right.
In my second movie (taken at location #2 on the map) I got my first look at Mt. Hood as the highway turned to the north and I could see it on my right, and you can watch this movie with the player below:
My next movie was taken as I-205 crossed a river (#3 on the map) and headed into Oregon City, and again there were nice (although far away) views of Mt. Hood off to the east. Take a look at this movie with the player at right.
Between Johnson City and Clackamas, I got off the Interstate and turned east on Highway 212, which I mis-identified in the movie I took heading into Clackamas (#4 on the map). Mt. Hood is still way off in the distance (50 miles away, the sign said). You can see this movie with the player at left.
Finally, just before reaching the Mt. Hood scenic highway (US Highway 26), I passed through the town of Boring, and I couldn't resist taking a movie of that event (#5 on the map). You can watch that movie below:
For the last two movies, I am switching to an aerial view of the route from Boring through Sandy and out to Mt. Hood.
East of Sandy, the highway enters a national forest, and I lost most of my light on this late winter afternoon, but I did make a movie of what the highway looked like here (#1 on the aerial view), and you can watch that movie with the player at left.
I went close to the town of Rhododendron and found a road that turned off and pointed directly at Mt. Hood. Unfortunately, the sky had become quite cloudy, and my views of the mountain mostly obscured, but I did take one more movie at this farthest point that I reached (#2 on the aerial view), and you can watch that movie below:
I could have driven closer to Mt. Hood if I had gone another twenty miles or so, but the light was fading so fast that I thought it best to live with what I had gotten so far, so I turned around and headed back to Portland for dinner.
Leaving Portland
The other set of pictures and movies was taken as I left Portland late Friday afternoon. The first set of three movies was taken on our liftoff and climbout from the Portland Airport, and you can watch that sequence using the players below:
I put my camera away for a while as we climbed out over Oregon, Idaho, Nevada and Utah.
As we began to fly over the Rocky Mountains, night was beginning to fall, so I took a last few shots. First, I took two photographs of the snow-covered Rock Mountains, and you can see those pictures
here
and
here.
And then I took a final movie of the Rocky Mountains passing below as the light faded, and you can watch that movie with the player at left.
You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.
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February 19, 2004: A Visit to Fort Harrison, Indiana |
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February 4-6, 2004: A Visit with Judy in North Carolina |
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Return to Index for 2004 |
