my visit to Stonehenge

Saturday was a beautiful sunny early February day and I decided that since it would likely be the ONLY sunny day between a myriad of wintry gray days, that I'd take a drive! :) And since I'd only been to Stonehenge once before and without a proper visual capturing device, that I should go back for another look. Besides, a drive up the gorge is always pleasant and I had a tank of gas to kill.

Stonehenge (or Washington State's recreation of it) is a war memorial (I believe WW1, not sure though) and it's just across from Biggs, Oregon. About 2 hours East of Portland on I-84. A beautiful drive through Hood River and The Dalles. High atop the smooth Washington hills sits this little recreation. Its pretty cool to be up there and see the Biggs bridge cross the Columbia River. It's at the point in the Gorge, where you've left the lush treed rocky area and are more into Central Oregon (I believe you're actually North of Bend at this point). So everything looks pretty desolate, but beautiful.

I finally saw a hilltop full of all the huge windmills that I'd seen being transported through Port of Vancouver, WA. It's quite amazing actually. I like the idea of wind energy, but it does tend to alter (ruin in some's opinions) the serene landscape.

At any rate, this cold February day I took a few snaps of the memorial Stonehenge site and then took a walking tour of The Dalles. It's actually quite an old city, home of one of the dams that crossed The Columbia River and has three standing courthouse buildings, and a few older churches, including one quite beautiful former Catholic Church. I love historic buildings! So it was quite fun for me to walk around and see all the various architecture.

This pic is of an old bank – quite a cool building – very narrow and long. It's currently housing a Jeweler/Gemologist, but you can still see the vault from the front door.