Old Retired Guy Blog
Sept 24 - 29, 2006
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Eastern Washington (Page 4/4)
No offense, but I'm getting tired of writing this so I'd better bring this dull
travel story to an end. (Blogging is much harder work than I thought!) [September 28] We left Steamboat Rock State Park and continued our trek south along Highway 155, eventually taking Highway 17. Once again the clear blue skies and the calm water generated beautiful reflections on the river.
We stopped at
Dry Falls, a marvelous formation carved out by the Missoula Floods. It was very sunny and quite
warm, but that only added to the experience. It would be silly to visit
Dry Falls on a rainy day. We thought about driving over to Hooper to see where a friend of ours grew up, but that was quite a bit out of the way and we were getting tired so decided to save that for some other time. We just headed back down US 97 and eventually stopped at Goldendale for the night. It was a good thing we decided to stop for the night and not for the day because Goldendale is the home of Goldendale Observatory, one of the largest public telescopes in the country. We enjoyed a free lecture and the opportunity to stand in line and gaze at the stars and planets. Kind of cool. [September 29] We crossed back into Oregon today so I guess I shouldn't say anything in this section that I've called Eastern Washington, but, I doubt that anyone will be offended. I've always loved the Columbia River Gorge so heading back on the same route that we started out on was not at all boring. In fact, when we started this trip we were anxious to get into Washington so we didn't really take the time to stop in the Gorge. Since we weren't that anxious to get home we did stop and enjoy a couple of things. In The Dalles we stopped at the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center, which is a wonderful place to stop and learn a bit more about this part of the country. Since the weather was so nice we wanted to drive and hike along a stretch of the Historic Columbia River Highway that we haven't been on before. This is the part that runs west from The Dalles to Mosier. Sections of the highway are still drivable and, if you like narrow winding roads, you will be delighted. You can no longer drive on some sections of the original road. Many of those sections, however, have been restored for hiking as part of the Historic Columbia River Highway State Trail. Many of these sections were abandoned with construction of Bonneville Dam in 1936 and the later construction of I-84.
We stopped outside of Rowena at the east entrance to part of the trail that passes through the Mosier Twin Tunnels. This part of the trail runs for about 5 miles, but we only walked as far as the tunnels and then turned back. It's hard to imagine men in the early part of the 20th century digging and blasting their way through the rugged basalt that underlies this part of Oregon. Unlike today, where hills are cut, valleys are filled, and all unnecessary curves are taken out of roads, the Historic Columbia River Highway is a thing of beauty that fits into the surrounding landscape as much as possible. After that hike we drove back home. End of Eastern Washington Entry |
