Paradise in Northern Oregon

I thought I’d write about the kind of places we’ve been stay in during our trip. Generally speaking, our preference would be to split our time, staying half the nights in hostels and the other half in campgrounds, sleeping in a tent. As I mentioned previously, cozy hostels are hard to find in the US (unlike, for example, in New Zealand), so our camping portion is larger this time. Whereas camping is obviously the least luxurious option, we value the feeling of staying “inside” nature very much, especially in National Parks.
That being said, we try not to camp for a single night, so when traveling long distances we usually seek alternatives. If we can, we fit such a single night stay into a KOA’s Kamping Kabin. KOA (Kamping Of America) is a wide network of uniform-looking campgrounds, with a very commercial feeling and often near a highway. This is certainly not the kind of in-nature camping we normally look for, but you know in advance exactly what you’ll get, the Kabins themselves are nice, and we can cook our meals as in every other campground.
Another consideration, at least since we’ve left the dry part of western US, is that our tent has very limited water resistance. We would probably be fine with a short drizzle, but as we found out in Yellowstone, an hour and a half of downpour is way more than the tent can successfully endure. Luckily, we found a vacant hotel room after one night, and were spared from sleeping in very damp sleeping bags...
The least favorite option for us is a motel. On top of being pricier, let alone with the need to eat in a restaurant, both Anat and I simply dislike motels. Despite the undeniable convenience of a private shower, you need nothing more than the vast amount of Styrofoam disposable dishes in a motel breakfast to make me feel I don’t belong there.

That brings me to our current accommodation, which is very different from all of the above. After 3 days with very long drives, we crossed Idaho and Eastern Oregon, and got to a lovely area about an hour east of Portland, Oregon. My parents will be flying out of Portland in a week, and we’ll be spending the rest of our time with them in this area, so Anat suggested we check out vacation rentals. And boy, was that a brilliant idea. After a couple days here, I’m still thrilled when I look around me.
We got a fully-furnished and fully-equipped home, situated amongst fields and orchards, in turn surrounded by lovely hills, somewhat reminiscent of the Tuscan countryside. The house is perched over a beautiful pond, with large trees around it, giving it shade. On the north, in Washington State, the snow-capped Mt. Adams is tall and clear. On the south, the impressive and snow-capped Mt. Hood is a few miles away. We’re a few minutes drive from the lovely town of Hood River, and from the many attractions the Columbia Gorge has to offer. Not to mention several added bonuses, such as a winery with wine-tasting a short walk down the road, and a neighboring farm with a friendly horse-breeding lady, who invited Noga, Hadas & Maayan to ride one of her ponies. Paradise!

Giora

PS:
The only down side at the moment is my Mom’s health – she threw out her back, and is in a lot of pain :-( We all hope she’ll feel better soon. She’ll kill me for sharing this information...