Troutdale

From Portland, take I-84 east to our first stop off Exit 17: Troutdale. Exit and drive along the frontage road to Graham Road (follow signs for Troutdale and Columbia River Highway), where you’ll turn right. Take your first left on Columbia River Highway and drive directly into town, where a short stretch of galleries, shops, and museums beckons 1882, started as a thriving agricultural community and has since grown to become home to some 9,000 residents. A visitor center, on the main road here, is a good place to inquire about trails in nearby Sandy River Canyon and Beaver Creek Canyon, or to find out more about activities in the area generally. An imposing bronze likeness of Nez Perce Chief Joseph graces a small plaza. One favorite stop in Troutdale is McMenamins Edgefield, a 38-acre estate originally built in 1911 as the Multnomah County Poor Farm and now on the National Register of Historic Places. Visitors come to relive history through tours of the renovated buildings and grounds. It’s quite a complex, if a bit commercialized. You’ll find a brewery and beer garden, a winery and tasting room, a golf course, a movie theater crafted from a 1930’s boiler room, restaurants, a gift shop, herb and vegetable gardens, and hostel-like accommodations. To get to it, turn right off of Graham Road (which you took from Exit 17), then right onto Columbia River Highway, rather than left into downtown Troutdale. The road veers left to become NE Halsey and you to stop and browse. Troutdale, which traces its origins to the arrival of the railroad in Edgefield is on your left.