Today was spent exploring the best of what Hood River, Oregon has to offer from spectacular hiking, beer tasting, vintage museum and an educational dam tour. We started our morning with the choice of hiking the "Twin Tunnels" of Mosier along the Historic Columbia River Highway. Built in the early 1920s, the tunnels were closed and sealed after the construction of Interstate 84. The original highway was promoted by Sam Hill and engineer Samuel C. Lancaster to be modeled after the great scenic roads of Europe. The roadway took full advantage of all the natural beauty along the route overlooking the Columbia River from 600 feet above with grandiose views of Oregon and Washington. The other option was to visit the popular Western Antique Aeroplane and Automobile Museum (WAAAM) that has one of the largest collections of still-flying antique aeroplanes and still-driving antique automobiles in the country. At last count there were over 130 antique cars in the collection that spans four large airplane hangers. Our next stop on this busy day in Hood River was the world famous Full Sail Brewing Company for beer tasting and brewery tour. Founded in 1987, Full Sail was the first commercially successful craft brewery to bottle beer in the Pacific Northwest for retail sale, and one of Oregon's early microbreweries.
This led us up to lunch when we boarded the National Geographic Sea Bird and headed downstream through the scenic Columbia River Gorge to Cascade Locks where we met our buses for the afternoon activities. Once again it was a hard decision between hiking at the magnificent 620-foot Multnomah Falls or go on an educational tour of Bonneville Dam. The falls are so beautiful in the autumn with the green ferns, rushing waterfall and yellow big leaf maple trees. The Bonneville Dam tour was fascinating and allowed us a rare look into the generators that provide power to the Pacific Northwest and also the fish ladder that allows several species of fish to pass safely through the dam. As the sun lite the sky a fiery red our ship descended Bonneville Dam, the last of our eight navigation locks on our way to the Pacific Coast.
