Day 4: The Dalles to Arlington After scanning the map for what seemed like hours, the best alternative to Interstate 84 we could come up with was crossing over the river into Washington State

and taking Highway 14 east for about 20 miles. It's over 60 miles from The Dalles to Arlington, but after the bridge at Biggs, Oregon there is no way to cross back from Washington until Umatilla which was 50 miles farther east than we were going. So we took Washington State Highway 14 as far as Biggs and it was definitely worth the few extra miles it added, as the Washington side of the river was really scenic and Highway 14 was nearly traffic free. You're never out of sight of the river and looking across at Interstate 84 it didn't really look all that bad either. When we did cross back into Oregon and get onto the Interstate it wasn't a problem at all. Tailwinds of at least 20, if not 30-40 miles an hour just pushed us along at incredible speeds for the final 40+ miles. The shoulders are really wide and the traffic was not very heavy at all.

The picture on the left is of the Columbia River, taken from the Washington side looking back west. You can see Interstate 84 closely following the bank of the river on the far side. Trains run along the Washington side. We simply blew into Arlington and checked into the only motel. There were two restaurants in town (population 500), one of them owned by the motel. The motel clerk recommended we eat at the competition - so that's what we did.

There are two main activities in Arlington, one business and one pleasure. The business is shipping grain down the Columbia River to Portland and on to Asia. Portland exports more grain to Asia than anywhere else in the U.S. There's a large storage silo and a dock for barges. All day long, semi trucks roll up from the farms to the south and unload their cargo in Arlington. The pleasure activity is windsurfing. The picture on the right shows a couple of windsurfers. There were dozens of them on the very windy day we were there and they provided us with most of the

entertainment the town had to offer. We were taken aback when one of the windsurfers got out of the water, went over to his Jeep Grand Cherokee and proceded to change into business attire - suit, white shirt, and tie. He told us he was on his way to a business meeting and just couldn't resist stopping to partake of the great windsurfing conditions that day. The whole Columbia Gorge is a mecca for top-notch windsurfers and just like wave surfers they all seem to know where the best spot is each day. This day it was in Arlington.