When I drive over the Marquam Bridge’s upper deck, my eyes are on the car in front of me while I make flash decisions about which lane is least likely to get bogged down in traffic. But from a window seat in the elevated rear of the Fisher’s Landing Express, I’m reminded that for all the blandness of the bridge itself, it offers a heck of a view.

The vista of city skyline and distant peaks is kicking off a day of sightseeing in Vancouver’s eastern burbs courtesy of my Hop card, which Vancouver’s bus system, C-TRAN, adopted in 2017, in conjunction with TriMet. Before that, as a seasoned Portland transit rider who rarely ventured north of the Columbia on the bus, I was never sure if my monthly TriMet pass would work for the other agency, or if I’d need coins or small bills on hand. In the age of Hop, I can let the card reader do the work. When I look it up later, I see my Marquam Bridge view only cost an extra 20 cents after my TriMet fare to get downtown.

It’s just after morning rush hour, and after a few young men with backpacks get off at Portland State University (“last stop in Portland,” a recorded announcement warns) I have the whole bus to myself. It’s a lot like the TriMet one I took downtown, but with fabric-covered seats instead of hard plastic. A previous passenger was kind enough to leave a memory test on my seat that promises to tell me whether I’m a genius, but when I unfold it I see it’s merely testing my knowledge of the 10 Commandments and all the ways I might be punished and sent to hell.

The Fisher’s Landing Transit Center, where the express bus soon deposits me, is certainly not hell. It has indoor and outdoor seating, restrooms, and power outlets, so pretty heavenly, really. From here, I’d planned to take two local buses to downtown Camas and then later make my way to Washougal. But an alluring, about-to-leave Skamania County Transit bus, decorated with a striking Mount St. Helens, beckons to me instead and I reverse my plans. A $2 fare (or $40 annually with the Gorge Pass) can take passengers all the way to Stevenson, but I hop off a few minutes later at the Washougal Park and Ride and walk toward the Columbia River.

At Parker’s Landing Historical Park, I read about the WaSucally band of the Chinook people, the wappato and camas plants they made use of, and the epidemics that decimated their numbers. There are the obligatory mentions of Robert Gray, James Cook, Lewis and Clark, and fur traders, and I realize with some embarrassment that I never knew Multnomah, the county I’ve lived in for decades, was an Indigenous name for the Willamette River. I read about George Washington Bush, considered the first Black man to settle in what became Washington state, right after Oregon’s territorial government started passing Black exclusion laws. I also learn about “Indian Princess White Wing (Betsy Ough),” who was a “renowned midwife of the area.” Another display details of one of the Washington Territory’s first female doctors.

After spending so much time at this one information kiosk, I remind myself I still have two towns to explore. The park is also home to a rose-encircled gazebo, a small plaza, little standing grills for public use, restrooms, a war memorial with a depressing amount of blank space for future names, and a Silver Rose monument to “the men and women who served in the Vietnam War and later died as a result of Agent Orange dioxins.”

I’m a little too early for lunch at the bright blue Puffin Cafe, a floating restaurant that promises “a taste of the tropics” but doesn’t open till 11. It’s only 10:30am; had that Stevenson bus not flipped the order of my day trip, I would have spent happy hour with boat-up diners at this hidden gem, perhaps going through an entire bucket of Corona myself to cool off my tongue from the habanero-tinged Calaloo Voodoo soup. I could have stopped at Doomsday Brewing, too, just on the other side of Highway 14. (Thanks to C-TRAN, I have a designated driver.)

Soon I’m following Sasquatch arrows on the pavement along the Washougal Waterfront Trail, stopping to read info boards about the geology of Mount Hood and Irish-born painter Paul Kane, and taking a playground selfie with Eegah the Sasquatch, who’s engaged in the Sisyphean task of hauling an erratic boulder named Erric, brought here in the Missoula Floods. The path leaves the river for a while and hugs Highway 14, where I find some much smaller boulders in the form of Roxy the Rock Snake. Passersby can add a painted rock to make Roxy even longer. Her Facebook group chronicles some misadventures—a partial kidnapping, threats of a phantom rehoming, a Canadian doppelganger (back off, eh!)—but mostly just warms the heart.

The path passes some low-slung cottages and the occasional gated McMansion and soon returns to the river—literally, with a section on a floating dock—at Steamboat Landing Park. I could keep walking east along the levee trail and reach Cottonwood Beach at William Clark Park, with the promise of lunch and a pint at 54’40” Brewing just beyond, but instead I pass through the pedestrian tunnel under Highway 14 (which, remarkably, does not reek of urine) and find myself in downtown Washougal. I duck into the Pendleton outlet and am relieved to be on foot, as the prospect of lugging around a Dude sweater, a new winter coat, or some pajamas helps to protect me from some real splurges. The markdowns here can be significant, but items are still pricey.

While the Pendleton shop is bustling, the rest of downtown Washougal is pretty sleepy in the middle of the weekday. New and under-construction buildings hint at more life to come, but the only occupant of Reflection Plaza at this hour is a statue of Seaman, the Newfoundland dog who tagged along with Meriwether Lewis and the Corps of Discovery. A barber taking a break on the sidewalk asks a passing friend if he needs a haircut, since the next booking isn’t for a while. The atmosphere is warm and lively inside Trap Door Brewing, where I have lunch at the bar, steps from the open brewing floor. There’s a Timbers schedule on the wall, a TV set to ESPN, high chairs for the kiddos, and a game shelf. A lot of the taps are taken up by hazy options and other IPAs; the West Coast pilsner named Day Beer goes well with my combo pizza slice.

A block north, a purple house guarded by lions and a Jesus statue and adorned with crosses and painted flowers on its permanently closed shutters looks like it has been transported from New Orleans, with a Ping-Pong table in the gravel yard and a barber’s chair under a pergola strung with holiday lights. There’s a chair inside, too, facing a TV. Customers of Roger’s Barber Shop can pick where they want to sit for their trim from Roger Cook, an artist, recently retired C-TRAN driver, and a barber since 1984.

“It’s kind of strange, different,” Cook says of the outdoor option, which he first offered in consideration of “cold, flu, COVID, all that” and has stuck with it because some customers get a kick out of it. “If you would have told me when I went to barber school I was gonna have an outdoor barbershop, or a barbershop in my home, I’d be going, What? You don’t know how things are going to turn out.”

The artwork on the shutters, porch columns, and Ping-Pong backboard is his own. “I drove a bus for 20 years. I’d come home stressed out and wanting to relax, and I’d do digital art,” he says. “Then it went into rocks, wood, metal, and now it’s mainly painting.”

This little purple house can hold only so much, so Cook rents a studio three miles away in downtown Camas, where I’m heading on the bus that comes every half hour (Hop card deduction: $1.25). It takes me past the K&M Drive-In burger joint and the sign for RiverSide Bowl, next to an empty space where the vacant bowling alley was purposely burned down in 2012 for firefighter training.

Camas has about 60 percent more residents than Washougal, and its picturesque downtown is about 600 percent more bustling. It hosts a farmers market from 3 to 7pm on summer Wednesdays, and the Camas Days Hometown Festival happens on the last Friday and Saturday in July. But even without a major event going on, the tree-line blocks feel pretty happening. The old-school Lutz Hardware has its garden items showcased for the season, and its suspender choices include American flag and tape measure patterns. The town can support an olive oil shop and some fancy clothing boutiques, and there’s a toy store with a great book selection (Periwinkle’s) as well as a bookstore with not a lot of inventory but some cool fake-wood-floor carpet (Autumn Leaf). Papermaker Pride, named for the mill town’s high school mascot, sells local fan gear and stickers of a dabbing Sasquatch.

The art deco Liberty Theatre marked its 97th birthday this month but keeps up with the times by showing first-run movies. For a real old-time experience, get lost in the basement of Camas Antiques next door, packed with vintage clothes, books, kitchenware, vinyl records, eight-track tapes, fencing helmets, and all kinds of oddball treasures.

RedDoor Gallery, where Cook has his studio, is one of two recently opened galleries in downtown Camas. Started by three working artists as a combo gallery and studio space, it also hosts classes and events that unite artistic expression with wine and charcuterie. Around the corner on NE Fourth Avenue's main drag, 408 took over another gallery space and lines its walls with work from more than 30 local artists.

Since I don’t have time to double back to Washougal and the Puffin Cafe before I’m due home, I poke my head into some of Camas’s watering holes. The wooden-cooler Mill Tavern, a.k.a. the Mill Corner, looks lovely but smells a little too strongly of cleaning product at the moment, so I land instead at Grains of Wrath Brewing to decipher the heavy-metal lettering on its tap list. The hometown-pride Papermaker Pale Ale is hoppy enough that I don’t dare venture into the West Coast IPAs, and the crisp Frost Hammer Helles lager makes a fine follow-up. A tasty but artery-unfriendly menu offers poutine, beer cheese–loaded friends with bacon, a crispy chicken sandwich, fish and chips, and a pimento grilled-cheese sandwich.

I digest my Chi Town dog on a two-bus jaunt back to Fisher’s Landing, costing my Hop card another $1.25. From there, a 12-minute ride on C-TRAN’s no. 65 (no charge) lands me right back in the bosom of TriMet at the Parkrose/Sumner Transit Center, though after the restroom-and-outlet experience of Fisher’s Landing I’m tempted to put this “Transit Center” in air quotes. When I scan my Hop card to board the Red Line MAX, all that comes off is 30 cents, bringing me up to the cost of a TriMet day pass ($5.80), plus $2 for my splurge on the Stevenson-bound bus. I could have taken that bus to hike Cape Horn and wandered around Stevenson, or gone all the way to Bingen and connected to Hood River for a car-free grand Gorge tour and overnight. Another day.