Rowena Crest- Guest post by Ian Hsieh

"I liked that there were lots of beautiful flowers there, and we saw some birds.  I liked that there was lots of cool stuff.  We had to watch out for poison oak.  Poison oak can give you a big rash that scratches.  It has three leaves on it that are red.  But the poison oak looked awesome.  It was kind of pretty.  All the plants were colorful.  I took lots of pictures of all the beautiful flowers.  When I grow up I'm going to be three things.  They are a teacher, an engineer and a photographer.  I'm going to teach kindergarten because kindergarten is fun in my class and I like it.  The hike is hard.  I sweated a lot.  I would like to take more pictures of flowers somewhere.  A different place that is fun to.  People should go on this hike because all of the stuff looked cool."

 Daddy being silly

This is definitely one of our favorite hikes.  It's a few exits past Hood River (which means we can stop at Mike's ice cream shop afterwards!)  It's just the right distance for our kiddos, even though our oldest was living it up in Chicago.  And as Ian so eloquently captured, the wildflowers are incredible and stretch as far as you can see.  These are my favorite days.  The ones with blue sky and winding rivers and holding hands through a field of sunflowers.  The long conversations dreaming about summer plans and especially training my boy to notice the beauty around him.