Hood River, a watersport Mecca

On Tuesday morning the air was still cool when we left Government Camp, and we headed towards the kite and windsurfing community of Hood River where the wind blow fiercely over the Columbia River. 

Very soon, we got an eyeful of riders of all abilities contending with the strong wind blowing at counter-current from the gorge. 

We did a long hike and ran into Rob, from Park City’s Mountain Top, a neighbor in fact, who said he new a few ski biz “celebrity” and that’s when I heard my name, albeit a tad butchered.  When asked, he confirmed it was me he was talking about and remembered me making fast, wide sweeping turns down Thaynes. Funny… 

In the afternoon we stopped at Multnomah Falls, Oregon’s tallest at 620 feet, picnicked at the base and hiked to the top and had fun while passing out of breath or exhausted hikers, and telling them “Better hurry, Elon Musk is giving away his left over $1 million dollar checks at the top!” 

For the most past this was a great icebreaker and elicited many comments like this one: “Only French people would think of lies like that one!” Soon we reached Portland and stayed downtown at the Mark Spencer Hotel. 

As we walked around the area to spot a restaurant for dinner, we were shocked by two things. One was the emptiness of the downtown area on a work day and by the number of vagrants and homeless sleeping on the sidewalks. 

Even though the room was very nice, the bed super comfy and the linen luxurious, the hotel had zero internet and that didn’t work well for me as it was the first place in 6 nights that was so bad, in spite of the front desk employee denying the problem.