Day 2, could have been better, could have been worse

Day 2 of the road trip started out great. Cole and I got in a nice little workout in the hotel before getting back on the road around 9:45. The weather today was mostly sunny with temps ranging in the mid-forties to low fifties. The only downside was the wind, which was blowing pretty hard. Most of the drive today was along the Columbia river.  The scenery along the Columbia river and the Columbia gorge was awesome. 

We stopped for a late lunch in Arlington, OR. Right after lunch is where mistake number one was made. Due to not paying attention, I ended up getting back onto the interstate going in the wrong direction.  I noticed my mistake right away but the problem was, the first place to get off the interstate and back on, going in the right direction, was 20 miles down the road. Mistake number two occurred not long after mistake number one was corrected.  I decided it would be cool to drive up into the mountains and get a close up look of Mount Hood. The problem was, I didn't really think this through too well. You see, it was late afternoon by the time we got to highway 35 that goes up to Mount Hood. There was a light rain falling as we started up into the mountains, and I neglected to fill up the car with gas. All was going fine at first but then the rain started changing to snow and there were signs stating that we were entering the Snow Zone and that chains or snow tires were required. I had neither. Pretty soon the road was becoming icy with more and more snow accumulation.

The winds were picking up and I was having to drive slower and slower. I noticed that there was very little other traffic and what other vehicles I saw, were  4 wheel drive or all wheel drive.  By this time it was getting dark and I was down to a 1/4 tank of gas and the traction light on my car was flashing quite frequently, and we had no cell phone signal. It was at this point that I decided it might be best to play it safe and turn around and go back down. Besides, it was so foggy and overcast that we wouldn't have been able to see the peak of Mount Hood anyways. We made it back down to the interstate without any problem but we ended up losing a lot of time and because it was now very dark outside and raining, we missed the rest of the gorgeous scenery of the Columbia gorge going into the Portland area. Oh well, at least we didn't end up spending the night in the car, in a ditch somewhere on the mountain. Even though we didn't do much other than drive today, Cole and I still enjoyed every minute of it.

Tomorrow we will drive into downtown Portland and see what there is to see. Then it will be on to the Pacific coast. This pretty much wraps up day 2.