Archive | September, 2011

Give a little thought to Greyhound as cool, cheap way to visit Hood River

30 Sep

Have you ever traveled in Mexico, and taken the bus? Seriously, they’ve got wonderful bus lines, with seats far more comfortable than most airline seats, air conditioned cabins, and video dubbed into Spanish.

Remembering how pleasant that was, we found ourselves musing the other day as to why bus travel in the U.S. has so little respect or appeal to adventurous travelers. Many of the people who come to the Hood River Hotel are what the industry calls “FIT” — free and independent travelers. They drive their own cars, independence in the U.S. of A. being what it is.

But we think they might want to rethink this transit thing. The thought crossed our minds, watching the Greyhound bus circle the block where the hotel is located, and pull to the curb a block away to let off — and take on — Hood River passengers. This dropoff a block from our door is a temporary arrangement, while the state completes a major interchange project. When it’s done, the buses will return to their normal route. Even then, passengers visiting Hood River could easily walk downtown — and stay at the hotel, if they wanted.

The thought got reinforcement the other day, when we passed one of the bus line’s new buses out on the Interstate. Slick.

We mention that because, in this day of higher gas prices and escalating air travel costs, the bus just might be the ticket for you. Save money on travel, spend money on other stuff (OK, like hotel rooms).

We looked at the Greyhound web site, just to get a fix on the possible. They’ve got a one-price pass program — the Discover Pass — that lets you buy 7-, 15-, 30- or 60-day blocks of unlimited travel and unlimited stops.

The 7-day pass costs $246, and the 60-day pass costs $556. That’s less than $10 a DAY to go as far as you want (or as far as you can stand sitting on a bus). But still.

With memories of mail-run travel from days gone by, we checked the Greyhound chart that shows travel time in hours between major cities. Between Seattle and San Francisco, it showed 20 hours. If you drove it yourself, it would take 14 hours dead-heading. So you get 6 more hours to finish “War and Peace.” And when you arrive? You don’t have to pay for parking.

We’re thinking this is the travel deal of the century here — and a great way to visit Hood River. Once you’re here, the boys at Discover Bicycles or Mt. View Cycles can hook you up with local motion. Get your (bus) motor running.

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Salving the wounds of not making the Top 25 Hotels list

28 Sep
Sun set at hood river, Columbia river
Image via Wikipedia

Awww, we didn’t make Sunset magazine’s list of the 25 best hotels in the west. Believe us, we would tell you about it if we did. So why are we telling you about it because we didn’t?

Because we’ve got better prices? Well, sure.

Because we’re in downtown Hood River — and none of the others are? Definitely a plus.

Because we’ve eschewed the chi-chi glitz for down-home comfort and great, friendly customer service? That would be another reason.

Heck, there was a hotel on that Sunset list that didn’t have a restaurant or a fitness center. We’ve got both. Both, we tell you, and hot running water.

And we’re walking distance from eight wine tasting rooms and two rivers — the Hood and the Columbia. No hotel on that Sunset list can offer that.

So, maybe we’re on their B list, but B’s will get you into college. We are what we are — and that’s just fine, thank you very much. Besides, nobody else can say they’re 26th, because we claimed it first. We’re 26th, we’re 26th … YES!

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Tell us what you think

27 Sep

Great table service, including tooth extraction if need be

22 Sep

Briana Cantrell ... at her home-style dentist.

Our team has hidden talents. Server Ashley Heck, for example, learned the other day that she might also have potential in the field of dentistry. She was chillin’ with her cousin, Briana Cantrell, 6, when Briana’s loose lower tooth became the center of attention. As in, “How do we get that suckah outta there?”

Ashley first tried to extract it by having Briana bite into an apple. No go. “Athley,” Briana said, “it’th thtill in there.”

So Athley, we mean Ashley, turned to the tool box. Oh, my, did she find a pair of pliers.

Clamp. Yank. Put that tooth under the pillow, Briana.

Next time Ashley shows up at your table and asks if you’d like more coffee, you BETTER say “Yes, Ma’am, whatever you say, Ma’am.”

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The yin and the yang of it all

21 Sep

People say the funniest things. Sometimes they put them in writing. Such as?

Well, the recent guests, who left us a comment card that read: “No fridge or microwave. No parking. Where’s Fred & Wilma?”

Hmm. We offer those amenities in our suites, but not in the room those folks rented. If we had known, we would have been happy to shift them to another room. As for Fred and Wilma, they slept here — on a nice, comfy, queen-size BEDrock.

OK, there’s other people, too, who embrace the world with a bit more joi de vivre (that’s furriner for “happiness”). We like the note from John Link and Brandy Greene, who visited with us earlier this month: “I love this hotel! The entire staff has gone above and beyond mym expectations. The only complaint I have is we are leaving. Thank you so much.”

You’re welcome. And, well, you didn’t HAVE to leave. We’re glad to arrange long-term accommodations. Meanwhile, we’re glad John and Brandy enjoyed their short-term stay.

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At our kitchen of fine cuisine, SPAM holds a special place (although not on the menu — yet)

21 Sep

Our chef, Mark Whitehead, is an Oregon boy. But he worked in Hawaii for several years. His wife’s family still lives there. He went over earlier this year to cook at a camp organized to help cancer survivors explore ocean water sports.

None of which explains why (he says) he likes SPAM.

As they say in Hormel country, you’re just seconds away from crazy tasty town. Actually, several of us discovered recently that we share a love of SPAM. It was one of those early morning chat fests, fueled by not-enough-coffee.

Heck, Mark remembers his mother evicting the meat brick from its can, stuffing cloves in it, putting it in the oven and, voila, “three hours later,” it was … dinner?

“Back in the day, everything was low and slow,” Mark recalls.

Explains why he became a chef — not so he could do a better job making SPAM, but probably so he could get as far away from it as possible.

So, why did he move to Hawaii? Hawaii, after all, loves SPAM. Its residents consume more than 7 million cans a year, more per capita by far than any other state. And Mark, an avid golfer, recalls gleefully encountering a plate lunch shack on the back nine, serving up plastic-wrapped musubi.

The company awhile back sponsored a Hawaiian SPAM can design contest. Here’s the unveiling ceremony …

 

The winner got $1,000 — and year’s supply of SPAM. Weird? Not really. It’s just canned meat. Pork shoulder chopped up with a bit of ham, and stuffed with some sodium nitrite into a can.

Yes, it’s pretty frightening when you first lift the brick out of the can. But if you slice or cube it, and brown it in a frying pan — browning is key here — it actually works. The SPAM people offer a bunch of recipes on their web site. . Spamaroni and cheese? Yuck.

Take a tour down the Tasty Island Honolulu Food Blog, however, and you can get some ideas of how SPAM is so much more than junk mail. Does that mean it will soon appear on the menu at Cornerstone Cuisine? Well, you could always get lucky.

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Hotel server takes a break — to run to the top of California’s Mt. Baldy

20 Sep

Mike Ellingson, fifth from left with the letter L, joined his family for the Run to the Top of Mt. Baldy -- then rushed back to Hood River to resume his serving gig with the Hood River Hotel.

Even though Mike Ellingson now calls Hood River home, and spends many an afternoon skiing the snow fields above Timberline Lodge on nearby Mt. Hood, he had to take a break in early September so he could join his family and run to the top of the tallest mountain in Los Angeles County.
This being his second entry in the Run to the Top, you could say it’s about tradition — or at least the start of one. And it’s about family. Fourteen members of the Ellingson clan started the Run to the Top of 10,068-foot Mt. San Antonio (also known as Mt. Baldy), and 12 finished — sort of.

“They called off the race half-way through, because they were concerned about lightning,” Mike says.

Of the 700 people who started out from the 6,000-foot elevation, 200 finished anyway. “They never really had any lightning, but they were trying to be safe,” Mike says.

Mike, who has worked as a server with the Hotel for the past year, grew up on the ski slopes of Mt. Baldy, which his family runs. He played football and swam competitively in high school, and after graduation, found his way downslope to the sand and surf of Huntington Beach. To help his mother battle lymphoma into remission, he moved for two years to Wisconsin.

“Beautiful snow, but no hills,” Mike says, shaking his head.

His cousin Tom Ellingson kept dinging on Mike to think about relocating to the slopes of the iconic Mt. Hood, Oregon‘s tallest peak. Mike liked the idea. He had been working for several years with the Claim Jumper restaurant chain, so he negotiated a gig with its Portland franchise. From there, a shift to Hood River was easy.

Now, when he isn’t skiing, he’s out on the Columbia River with his standup paddleboard, or swimming, or biking.

“Livin’ the life,” he says. “I’m thinking this is a great base for me.”

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Meet a neighbor

14 Sep

Meet Steve Daniel, a local potter who shows his work at the Made in the Gorge store next door to the Hood River Hotel.

Cross-country drive brings couple to Hood River wedding destination

14 Sep

Summer in Hood River is the season for … kiteboarding, windsurfing, biking, hiking, wine sipping, river rafting, fishing, photo taking, beer diving and, for many a happy couple, getting married.

Makes sense. Who wouldn’t want to start their married lives in one of the most beautiful settings on the planet?

Julie Tong and Stephen Lewis — now, happily married.

Consider, for example, Julie Tong and Stephen Lewis.

She grew up just outside Washington, D.C., and is a newly minted attorney. Stephen, an emergency room nurse, hails from North Powder, Ore., and a family that grows organic potatoes in Idaho — featured on the shelves at Whole Foods, and on the plates of the reception dinner prepared by Blossoms Catering, the Hood River Hotel’s sister biz.

To reach the wedding venue at the Mt. Hood Bed & Breakfast, Julie and Stephen and their two dogs hopped in a car and started driving west from their home in Baltimore, Md.. Five days later — one covering 800 miles — they arrived in a place that, based on their effusive comments, they might someday call home.

It’s bound to be a wedding with unintended memories — sometimes, the best kind. For one thing, their ceremony took place under a pall of smoke from the Dollar Lake Fire several miles south on the north flank of majestic Mt. Hood.

Oddly, their wedding photos will probably remind them of that, because the smoke made for a bright orange hue to the day’s fading light.

Another memory?

“I was stung by a yellow jacket as I was putting Stephen’s wedding band on his finger!” Julie says. “I couldn’t believe it.”

After the exchange of vows, friends got the sting under control.

Choosing Oregon as a wedding destination made all sorts of sense. “Stephen’s surviving grandmothers lived in Oregon and could not travel far,” Julie says. “Additionally, the majority of Stephen’s family is from Oregon and we have always felt a special connection to the state.”

Us, too. Because Julie and Stephen love being outdoors, they chose the Mt. Hood B&B at the foot of Oregon’s tallest mountain. Then they began a search for a caterer, and loved the combination of quality food and affordable pricing they found with Blossoms Catering.

“It was a dream working with Cathy, Chef Mark, Beth and their team,” Julie says. “They were energetic, creative, and willing to work with two picky, self-described foodies like us. Mt. Hood and the Hood River area will forever have a special place in our hearts.”

For us, being a part of such special events is one reason we all love working at the Hood River Hotel and Blossoms Catering. We wish Julie and Stephen an eventful — and happy — life together. Something tells us, we’ll see them again.

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