Mt. Hood is a short one hour drive from Portland. You can actually see the mountain from the city on a clear day. You can also see Mt St Helens from the city on a clear day, but good luck getting a clear day. It rains in Portland 9 months out of the year.

Mt Hood is also the name of a small city close to the mountain. And here is where you will find the station for the Scenic Mt Hood Railroad. If you like trains and short trips, you'll like this one. It's four hours long and they serve brunch, and dinner depending on what time you go. They also have cheaper rides without food.

We took the Saturday night Murder Mystery Scenic Tour. We left the station at about 5 p.m. and returned at 9:30 or so. The train goes two hours towards the mountain. Stops at a small town for about 10 minutes and then heads back.

Dinner was served as we left the station. So we got to enjoy our meals and look out the windows at the passing scenery. There actually wasn't as much scenery as I expected. We did see a lot of farms and warehouses though.

The food was very good though and the service was excellent. It wasn't a full train, so my husband and I got a table to ourselves which was very cozy and romantic. We heard that if you are celebrating some occasion they throw in a nice cake and sing to you as well.

On the way back it started getting dark and we had already seen the scenery going up the mountain so that was a great time to have the murder mystery. About 6 actors came into the rail car and started acting out their parts. I guess it was a comedy/mystery. It was high on the corniness and low on the intrigue. But if you have enough to drink during dinner, like many of the people in our car had, you'll laugh at anything. So everyone had a good time. They actually have several different plays that they act out so you can be sure when you go they will have a different one for you.

I'm glad we went. It was decently priced for a 4 hour train ride, nice dinner, and a live show- about $90 a person. It was also great to have someone to go with. It wouldn't have been something I would have liked to do by myself.

If you plan a trip to Portland or do an assignment there, contact the Portland Tourism Commission and get them to send you their free travel information. They sent us a great book highlighting all the great scenic drives in the state. We took one of them to Mt Hood and back. They actually still had some snow turned into ice up there even in late May!