Welcome to Portland

I stopped for the night on the east side of Mt. Hood last night. I hadn't seen the mountain yet because it was very over cast. I was in no rush so I stopped early to relax, do some reading, and cook a good meal. I found a forest access road that took me to a good place to sleep for the night and I poked around a little on my gimpy leg. There was a nice group of flowers and when I looked closer I saw an ever nicer looking spider. Turns out it's a crab spider and they just hang out waiting for something to walk by, then they grab it with their front legs and suck it dry. Appetizing, no?

When I woke up this morning the sun was shining and after driving a little ways back to the main road I saw a dog sitting in the beach of a small pond. I figured his owner was near by but I looked and didn't see anyone in site. He was just sitting there on the beach soaking up the sun. Pretty soon I noticed he had a friend with him who also sat down not too far away and just seemed to be enjoying the sunrise. It was really odd to see two dogs just sitting their like that so nice and calm. Then a sandpiper (or some sort of shore bird) landed about 50 feet away and they both took off after it. Of course it was off the ground long before they got to it and it flew to where they'd been sitting so they chased it back to that spot before it flew off and they just say back down again. I watched them a few minutes longer and finally one of the dogs trotted off into the grass and the other followed.

Another 1/2 mile of driving got me a nice view of Mt. Hood and it was pretty impressive. I could see some clouds starting to build up on it already so I'm glad I saw it before it was covered again. I drove around the south side of the mountain before heading back up north towards Portland. As I was approaching the pass on the south side of the mountain I was driving in the sunshine. Within 20 feet of the sign indicating I was crossing over the pass to the west I hit a fog bank that I didn't drive out of for about 6 miles and I never saw the sun again until late in then afternoon. I don't know if the pass was actually acting as a dividing line in the weather or if the weather was moving in and it's just coincidence that's where I hit the line. Either way I guess it's welcome to the PNW. Thankfully the rest of the week is supposed to be pretty decent.

I arrived in Portland just in time for a BBQ at Jim's house which included some great food, great deserts, and great company. I think I'm going to get along just fine here over the next week.