Last night I got the update on the trip from Portland out to Hood River. The guys had hoped that Dad could arrange a place for them to sleep with one of his friends, but Dad was having trouble connecting with them via phone.
Levi and Jordan took off on bikes and had spectacular scenery as they rode along the Columbia River gorge. They decided to stop off at Multnomah Falls for a couple of hours, hoping Dad would call with contact info, but after swimming, having lunch and taking a nap and still no call they decided to head on into Hood River. Arriving at a grocery store after some 30 miles of biking and hitching a ride the last 30 or so miles, they were starved. Jordan promptly bought a quart of ice cream, or was it a half gallon?. Their thought was to again wait at the store until Dad told them where to sleep, but Dad was traveling and at this point on a plane and unable to call them. They kept waiting, and eating. After they had finished half of the ice cream they felt sick so Jordan calmly walked over to the Ice Vending Freezer and stuck the container of leftover ice cream into it, for later, he thought, as if it was his own freezer at home! Entering the store, they bought and consumed chicken and several other items and felt much better, so they decided to try out the ice cream again, for dessert, of course! Well, the freezer and other customers had cooperated with Jordan's confidence and had left it alone so they dove in and finished it off. Now feeling completely and irreversibly sick, they waddled off to their bikes and waited some more.
Now it was dark, and they began to feel that they must take matters into their own hands and find a campground. Asking around they discovered that a nice campsite existed just on the other side of the gorge, and that there was a convenient bridge right down at the bottom of this hill to cross over. Just as they were about to take off Dad calls with the news that the guy he hoped to have the boys stay with was actually in a moving van heading south - - his internship was over at Insitu Corp. Well, the boys were not too disheartened because they had found a campsite so off they went, down down down the hill to the bridge.
Upon arriving at the bridge, however, they discovered that no pedestrians and no bikes were allowed across this particular bridge so they went up to the bridge guard and asked for advice.
"Hitch a ride" was the only hope he offered, so Jordan reluctantly began to stick out his thumb when, to their surprise, a truck pulled over and told them to hop in before Jordan had even finished his posture. The guy was friendly and outgoing, easy to talk to, so the guys struck up a conversation quickly. Turns out this guy was a Mechanical Engineer and worked for an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle company there in Hood River. "That's funny", levi said, "What's the name of the company?" "Insitu Corp", he said. "Weird!" Levi said, "My Dad has done work for that company!" "What's your Dad's company?" "Quatro Composites". 'No way' says Brian, I know them, what's your dad's name?' 'Ken', says Levi. "Ken Gamble? I know him!". And so the conversation went.
Wow, this is too weird.
So, in the end, the guys camped on the 20 acres of this man who also had a beautiful log cabin, who Ken knew, that worked at the very company Ken had tried to arrange for them to stay with! So amazing! Life connections. Maybe hitchhiking is an amazing walk of faith, and a blessed one at that.
They hope to wind surf today. All For Now
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