April 6, 2009
I'm so tired! It's almost 9:30 pm. Bare bones of what we did: Drove on the Historic Columbia River Highway.
One thing we noticed is that's it's very relaxing driving on the freeways here. We encountered NO TRAFFIC PROBLEMS at all. Nice. Unlike driving in San Diego or LA. Maybe we got lucky or something, but driving here was very very stress free. Here we go up the mountain...
Can you believe this view? Wow!
For our first stop today, we went to the Vista House in Corbett, OR. Here's the official link to Vista House and more info here. It's a beautiful octagonal shaped building that sits atop a promontory overlooking the Columbia River Gorge. It was a picture postcard day - the sun was out, but it was cold as fk!
The view north of the Columbia River...that's Washington state across the river. You can still see snow on the mountain tops.
It was also very windy here! Our faces nearly froze off! Beautiful views of the Columbia River Gorge from there...Yes, there's that sweeping view of the Gorge, as seen briefly in the first few seconds of the "Twilight" movie trailer and also in brief spots in the movie...Simply breathtaking...
Plaque commemorating Samuel C. Lancaster, the Chief Engineer of the Columbia River Highway.
Informational posters inside the Vista House:
The main portion of the Vista House was the visitor center which had all kinds of informational posters and displays of Native American artifacts. There was also a lower portion that had more historical displays as well as a tiny gift shop.
Even though the sign said they'd open at 10 am, no one got there until 20 minutes later. We wanted to get in out of the cold! There is an upper observatory deck in Vista House, but it was closed due to the windy weather. That would have been cool to have gone upstairs and seen the view from the top.
The dome from the inside:
More info on the Gorge (click to enlarge if you want to read it):
Vista House info:
TC and I were getting blown by the wind -
One last look at the Gorge...
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