HCRH Milepost 22

The next HCRH milepost on this weird little excursion is Milepost 22, which is right in the midst of the highway's farm stand corridor. The milepost looks a bit worse for wear right now, tilted and possibly broken off at the base. Street View imagery from June 2023 shows it tilted like it is now, while previous versions from October 2021 back thru October 2007 all show it upright.

Nearby Attractions:

• Obviously the farm stands are the main event on this stretch of the highway, specifically the blueberry farm right across the highway, and the lavender farm next door to it. This is also your big chance to sneak a peek at the fallen milepost without looking like a suspicious weirdo poking around in someone's yard. So of course I procrastinated until past the end of farm stand season because the place always seemed crowded, so instead I had to roll by and take photos from the car like at Milepost 18. But you don't have to do that.
• A couple of religious retreat / conference centers just down the road, almost next door to each other: Menucha (Presbyterian, specifically First Presbyterian in downtown Portland) and Crestview Manor (very conservative Christian), both of which began as early 20th century grand manor houses owned by local captains of industry, built during that brief window of time before rich people realized they could just high-tail it off to Palm Springs during the wet months and do all their conspicuous consumption down there instead, while maintaining a low-key residence here for the tax-free shopping or whatever. Anyway, one tidbit for this humble blog's usual readership is that Menucha grounds map shows a number of trails and viewpoints around the site. I seem to recall that at one point you could buy a day hiking pass and wander the grounds taking photos without attending a conference, but I don't see any mention of that on their website anymore, so it may have been discontinued during the pandemic or thereabouts, I don't know.
• There's also a historic Grange hall just off the highway and behind some trees. Fortunately this Grange doesn't seem to have gone all militia-y like some others around the Northwest have. So if you're in the market for an indoor wedding venue in the Gorge, this might be a good option. If, on the other hand, you're planning a large, traditional outdoor wedding in the Gorge, any time of the year, with hundreds of guests, dozens of contractors, and tons of rented stuff that absolutely must not get wet or dirty, or be blown over by the wind, or hit by lightning, or stomped by krakens or kaiju, please be aware that hubris angers the gods. Mostly the rain gods, but the wildfire ones sub in over the summer, and I just feel like I shouldn't be a party to this and have no useful advice to offer except to reconsider. There's a whole genre of event they call an "elopement wedding", which is kind of like actually eloping except that you can tell people about it ahead of time, even your parents if you want to. So you and your intended, and your officiating friend who got ordained online last week, and your photographer, and a reasonable number of friends go for a hike somewhere in the gorge and have a brief ceremony (and extended photoshoot) wherever the mood strikes you, and roll with it and adapt if the weather goes sideways, and it's cute and looks spontaneous and doesn't bankrupt anyone, which is always a plus. Note: I'm not in this business and don't know anyone who is, and am not selling anything. I just like the idea and can confirm that this sort of event almost never triggers a kraken release.

HCRH Milepost 21

We're starting the new year with another Historic Columbia River Highway milepost. Milepost 21 is at the HCRH intersection with NE Evans Road and (sort of) with Corbett Hill Road. This is more or less the center of Corbett: To the west are the post office, the water district office, the elementary and high schools, and an incongruous tech company of some sort. To the east are the local general store, the rural fire department, the (future) local history museum, and an incongruous biotech food lab of some sort. To the north, Corbett Hill Road connects to I-84, while Evans Rd. heads south into the wilds of rural east Multnomah County, becoming SE Gordon Creek Road at the intersection with Hurlburt Rd., then winding south through various adventures and ending up in Sandy or thereabouts.

If you were expecting posts about mileposts 19 and 20 before getting here, you may be in for a wait. Milepost 19 is clearly visible in Street View imagery from June 2023 but I've looked for it several times and I'm mostly convinced it isn't there now. Up ahead we'll see at least two others that have obvious, recent vehicular damage, so if I had to guess what happened to #19, that would have to be the leading theory. I haven't been paying close attention to the subject over time, so I don't know if this is part of a wave of milepost damage or this actually happens all the time and the state just grumbles quietly and replaces them as needed. I would believe either, frankly.

I think Milepost 20 would be somewhere near the HCRH intersection with Mershon Rd. if it existed. It's not there now, wasn't there the last time Street View rolled through, and also wasn't there during any previous Street View visits, back thru 2007. The semi-interesting thing about this location is Mershon Rd. may be the oldest of several east-west routes predating the famous old highway, and sufficiently old road survey docs (like this one from 1889) refer to it as the "Portland and Dalles County Road", better known as the Dalles Wagon Road. Which was the HCRH's predecessor, though I don't think it was ever built all the way to The Dalles. Little remains of it today, as it was largely built over by the O.W.R.&N. railroad well before the HCRH went in. Which is a strategy that works amazingly in the original 1980s SimCity since the devs never imagined anyone doing that and did not penalize you for only building transit and nowhere for cars.

Nearby Attractions:

• Corbett Country Market, the local grocery store, liquor store, gas station, and bbq joint. I don't do a lot of restaurant reviews here, but I've had their tri-tip sandwich and highly recommend this place based on that.
• The local historical society museum isn't open yet, but they have an actual building under construction.
• About a block east from the milepost are NE 365th and 366th Avenues, which I thiiink are the highest-numbered streets anywhere on the Portland-centered street grid. I think the closest competitor on the west side (since unincorporated Washington county uses this system too) would probably have to be NW 341st Avenue just outside Cornelius city limits between Cornelius and Hillsboro.
• local community website, complete with local forums that people actually use and everything, sorta like the 1998 internet was everywhere.
• The secret 100' waterfall west of the old rock quarry at the Corbett I-84 exit, near the site of a 1903 train robbery.
• To the south, and further away, there's the obscure North Oxbow area (the largely ignored eastern half of Oxbow Park), and several even more obscure Metro natural areas, including at least one more secret waterfall, and this one will knock your socks off. (Metaphorically, I mean, and no offense intended to people who don't believe in socks.) But telling you more about it (including the location) is out of scope for this current project, so you'll have to wait a bit.