Today we went to my favorite restaurant in the U.S., Dean’s Homestyle Cafe. Some readers may note that I have been on a nationwide quest to find the best chicken fried steak. As far as I’m concerned, Dean’s has the best. I have tried chicken fried steak in maybe 100 places around the country but found none better.
For less than $10, they give you two patties of chicken fried steak, hash browns, 3 eggs and toast. Peggy ordered the Denver Omelet and it was a mighty thing. She took quite a bit home in a box. If you are ever in Clackamas, go east on WA-212 from I-205 and pull into the lot at 130th.
We spend the middle of the day passing by Trader Joe’s and Camping World because we are going almost towards San Diego by going into Nevada where stores are few and far between. Even after doing this mundane stuff, we still had plenty of day left so we took a spin up nearby US-26 which squiggles up the side of Mount Hood, local Oregon volcano. It is a big honker and during clear weather can be easily seen from Portland some 50 miles west.
US-26 is flanked by gorgeous forest and village scenery and climbs to 4000 feet elevation before passing by the turnoff to Timberline Lodge. They filmed some of The Shining at the lodge but we have been up there before so we turned around and started looking for a place to get a good picture of the mountain. It seems the closer you get to a mountain, the less you can see of it. Anyway, the trip back down was just as pretty as the drive up and Peggy did the driving so I was very happy. The best mountain views ended up being from Sandy, about 15 miles from where we are staying at Sandy River RV and only 65 miles from where we started today. We took the long way.
There are a couple views of this impressive volcano if you click here