Hood River Pear Festival

You can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

I suppose that one of our favorite places of all time would have to be the "Fruit Loop" on Highway 35 Just out of Hood River. This area north of Mount Hood in the Columbia Gorge definitely earns its nickname for all of the orchards and fruit growers. Pears and apples are the pride of this area, and indeed there are more types than can be quoted here. The highway gets its "loop" nickname because it literally loops around Mount Hood, then re-joins highway 26.

Terry and I set out for a Saturday to celebrate the "Festival of Pears" in the magnificent Fruit Loop. We started off with our usual: breakfast in Stevenson, Washington at the River's Edge restaurant. The River's Edge is a quaint little cafe that overlooks the Gorge. From the beautiful city of Cascade Locks in the Columbia Gorge, we crossed the "Bridge of the Gods" over to the Washington side of the Gorge. Stevenson lies just a few miles east of the bridge. A mill caught fire the day before and burnt to the ground. We could smell the burning remains as we crossed over. Clouds were threatening, but were eventually chased off, leaving us with one fine and warm day.

One could hardly document the trip without stopping at the Wind River Trading Post in Carson, Washington to browse for antique postcards and other embellishments. From there, we took the Wind River highway and crossed back over into Oregon.

The first orchard we visited for the festival was Rassmussen Farms. This was a beautiful area as the pictures on the left can attest to. We bought an armload of fruit (I stocked up on corn), loaded it into the truck, then headed off to the corn maze. I have a fascination for corn fields and therefore, could not stay away. I took a photo from the inside of the maze that's clearly representative of the day: sunny, windy, and beautiful. After finding our way out of the maze, we wandered out toward the massive gardens and Terry picked a bunch of flowers to take back with us.

The next stop was Cody Farms in Odell, a neighboring town of Hood River. It was there that we had the best pear-apple cider of all, fresh-squeezed. They were giving samples away, and by samples, I mean 16 oz. plastic cups full! We're talking lots of free cider. After having cider and browsing the vegetable and fruit areas, we took a hayride tour of the orchard. We both learned more about the pitfalls of growing fruit-especially in this section of Oregon, than we'd ever known before. This was a very pleasant place to be, and I kind of wished that the hay ride could have gone for an hour. It was about a 25 minute ride in and around the orchard.

Our last stop in this whirlwind tour was at the Apple Valley Country Store. Don't be fooled by the name. This place has more to offer than a mere country store. They've got animals, outside picnic areas, and the usual fruit and vegetables as well as several market buildings. We had BBQ outside. Terry had a pear dumpling and bought me a marionberry milkshake. More pleasant than the store itself, is the ride getting there. The winding roads and back country stopovers were altogether enchanting. I can't say enough about this area, and the day that we spent celebrating the "Festival of Pears" in Hood River County.