Timberline Lodge Oct 09

When Ben visited Oregon in 1978, my family took him to Timberline Lodge. It was a freezing cold day but it was a great adventure for Southern teenagers who had never seen that much snow! Last weekend, we decided to go to Mt. Hood again, this time to look at the changing leaves and maybe glimpse a little snow.

As we drove along the highway, Ben asked if this was the same route we had taken 30 years previously. I said that I didn't really remember but that I thought so. He said "it isn't quite right, something's different." Soon, we turned off the highway and started skyward, climbing to 1600 feet, to 3000 feet, to 4500 feet and finally he said, "this is the road." I asked how he remembered and he said that (in 78) as we were traveling to the top, all he could see through the fog and snow was that where the shoulder was supposed to be was actually an edge of a cliff. He said he just kept thinking that all he had to do was make one wrong move and my daddy would stop the car, push him over the edge and no one would know where or how he disappeared! And all I remembered was how much fun we had!