After another long day of travel, I’m back at the Timberline Lodge after they had several days of rain but the forecast for the next few days is sunny and cool.  It can live with that.  Just a few days after I left last week and up until this morning, they have had bad weather here with lots of rain and general unpleasantness.

I hopped on an early.flight from Gainesville and made it to Portland before lunch.  But I have company this time.  Kevin decided to try his hand at this hiking thing, so he flew out with me and will hike fifty miles to cascade locks.  We spent the afternoon grabbing lunch, getting fuel for the stove, and getting food for him for the next four days.  We missed the 3:25 bus and then got on the wrong connecting bus from Gresham to Sandy and ended up going back towards the airport.  We got off quickly and ended up taking an Uber to the Sandy transit center instead of waiting for two more busses to get us there.

Once in Sandy, we grabbed.dinner at a local pizza joint then nearly missed the last bus while hunting out for wet wipes.  But we made it in time, with a few minutes to spare.  We made our bus and got to the Timberline before dark.  We immediately set up camp then headed for the lodge for a beer.  The temperature here feels like thirty even though it’s only in the high forties.  I discovered I left my air mattress at.home, so I’ll have to sleep in my fleece to stay warm tonight.