Tom McCall is about an hours drive due east of Portland and is a Nature Conservancy Preserve that looks out over the Columbia River.
As I knew the main purpose of my hike was photography and not hiking I invited my friend Lisa to go with me. She is probably the only person I know other than Matt that is as interested in photography as I am. It was really nice to have a someone to take the trip out with. We started in the lower section that is relatively flat and went crazy taking pictures.
Oregon has finally been experiencing some wonderfully sunny hot weather, and being a California desert girl I am loving it. It has been in the high nineties for a solid 4 days now. It made the hike a little rougher and the photography rather bright, but I can't really complain about getting sunshine! We moved on to the upper portion of the trail where there were yet more flowers.
On our way down I insisted on a few photos of each of us in the flowers.
After a hot morning we stopped in the quaint town of Hood River on the way back for mango sorbet at the local ice-cream shop. It was a great day. Getting out into the Columbia Gorge really reminded me how beautiful everything is right now. I really need to make a greater effort to get out and go hiking more often. I have been reluctant both because of gas prices and because Matt my dependable hiking partner is still in France. But I really have to get out there and appreciate the flowers and waterfalls right now.
Other than work I haven't been up to a whole lot lately. My work schedule changed dramatically recently and I've been training to do the morning bake (4 a.m. mornings two days a week!). So a lot of my energy has gone towards just getting used to my new responsibilities and new work hours. Other than work I've been obsessed with gardening this spring and have been planting like crazy. Hopefully with the weather changing and summer coming on I'll have more exciting travels and experiences to write about soon.
Au revoir mes amis!
