olivermoss | Overly Complicated Gorge Trip: Day 3

I did the Mt Hood Railroad. It doesn't go all the way to Mt Hood, but climbs into the foothills of it and gets to about 500 ft elevation. Get get let off between a fruit orchard and winery.

We also get views of Hood:

And Adams:

It was cute and I like being able to get out and do these excursion trains. They are so couples focused it used to be impossible to even buy a single ticket for a lot of them. That's part of why I've gone from never having done any to having done a bunch recently.

My assigned seat was at a booth with a couple and the conductor asked if he could re-seat me to spare me how awkward that was, but I'd booked an upgraded ticket for the bar car and didn't want to be moved to coach. Then he swung by later to 'just check on me'.

Also, the previous night at that beer patio, I only stayed so long because it was all couples. Hood River is vacation spot that caters heavily to queer travelers. The town's logo is a rainbow heart. A beer in a place like that after a hike, that should be as good as it gets for me, but also I'm just there alone, surrounded by couples. It gets pretty wearying.

I make to make the best of it and I'm doing real cool things, but being solo was just especially wearying on this trip. I opted out of doing the wine tasting out in the vineyard because that was just going to be like intensely coupley.