Today we finally got our hike in. The wonderful thing about Portland is that its really two cities: the city we know and love during the rainy months and then the glorious city that appears when the sun comes out. You learn to forget that it's cloudy for the nth day and even learn to live without an umbrella...but then finally the sun comes out and you remember what life is like without clouds. I like the rain though. The rains gives us the roses and lush plant life. Finally today the actual weather lived up to the forecast and we had no clouds and it was 70 degrees. So Wink and Adam and I made our way back to the Mt. Hood area and hiked along the Salmon River.
One thing I noticed was the amount of litter along the trail. I've never seen much trash when hiking, but also I've never really hiked in a campground before. This particular hike is entirely in the Mt. Hood National Forest and parts go through campgrounds so there are some fire pits. One in particular was littered with trash - aluminum foil, a half-burned beer box and bottle caps. Then along Salmon River Road we saw someone's complete trash from Quizno's lying on the ground. How anyone could come to such a beautiful place and just leave their trash on the road is beyond me...
The trailhead is about an hour from our house so I probably used about a quarter of a tank in fuel. On the way I filled up and spent $41.86. It's a Catch-22: to enjoy nature we have to destroy nature -- because there is no way to get to the area other than driving. We also stopped for a sandwich at Subway after the hike (and before another hike...but it was a failed hike. We attempted to go to Mirror Lake for an awesome view of Mt. Hood but there's still too much snow to go out without snow shoes). Fast food is pretty wasteful because of the packaging involved: napkins, paper and plastic bags but I saved the plastic bags to use for cat litter waste. (Point: me)
I also went grocery shopping this morning and picked up a shower curtain (I have guests coming next week - ADRIENNE & ANGIE!) and our shower curtain was a culture for new types of mold and algae. It was pretty gross. I did buy the cheapest shower curtain ($5.99) so no loss there. Total spent: $31.21. I also had to buy a bus pass for May which was $65. It's cheaper to buy the pass than spend $3.50 a day to ride the bus. Also using a pass is much more convenient than trying to also have $1.75 in exact change on you at all times. The bus is much cheaper than commuting to work by car because of 1) gas prices and 2) the cost of parking. Also it's better for the environment and traffic to use public transit.
Total spent: $138.07
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