It also had some spectacular views...
...amazing how big and long this river is!
(same view, both kids...)
As we were leaving the central part of southern Washington, and heading back over to the Columbia River Gorge (the boundry between Oregon & Washington), we passed through several of the huge 'wind farms' they have there.
The have a whole lot of windmills out there...
Dusk was a great time for some pictures!
Further down the gorge, just before dark we stopped at the re-creation of Stonehenge.
It's actually a war memorial, but it's a full-scale concrete re-production of what Stonehenge would look like if it was still new.
Dedicated to the locals who served.
The kids were interested in what it really meant...
...that required a bit of explanation.
Still, it's a pretty cool place to stop, and near sunset you can have the whole place to yourself!
It also commands spectacular views of the gorge.
And a pretty nice view of the east side of Mt. Hood at sunset!
Side Story: Groing up, my dad use to haul us all over Oregon camping and seeing the sights. During those trips, we heard a lot about Sam Hill, a local pioneer. It seemed like every time you turned around the phrase "what the Sam Hill" (used as you might think...) was followed with a 'tale tale' of how Sam did this or that. He wasn't quite on the level of John Henry, Pecos Bill or Paul Bunyon, but you would think that dad was trying to make him so.
After about 40 or 50 of dad's stories, I pretty much had written them off as 'rural legend' - or dad just making up things. But later, when I was older and not nearly as smart as I was as a kid, I started to notice things that made me re-evaluate both the stories and my dad. This sign, near the Stonehenge memorial and Maryhill Museum (Mary Hill - get it - took me a long time to figure that one out...) bears witness to the fact that some - if not all - of the stories were true, and my dad may just have know a whole lot more than a 'smart' kid might have thought...
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