The Mighty Columbia

What a day!  We left Walla Walla, Washington this morning and headed west.  The first notable sight were windmills.  A whole windmill farm in fact.

 




Here's a newspaper article I found about this wind-power farm.  Pretty cool.

Then, we hit the snake river, or rather the lake formed by a dam on the snake river.



Not the same sight that Lewis and Clark saw for sure.  But, we thought of them just the same.  Last night we re-viewed the DVD on the Lewis and Clark expedition.  We bought the DVD in St. Louis, it is the same production that you can see in IMAX productions and we highly recommend it.  Imagine ... you've just pulled heavy boats UP the Missouri river and are hoping to see the water passageway to the west when, all you see, is snow-capped mountain ranges! 

I actually have a hard time believing that they pulled those boats up the Missouri.  When we were in St. Louis, we watched modern, power boats struggle against that current.  How in the hell did they do it in 1804?

Anyway, they wintered in Montana, crossed the Rockies on foot, were further confronted with the Bitterroot mountain range and struggled over that.  THEN, they were on the Snake river going DOWN stream!! Then, that became the Columbia river.  The great waterway to the Pacific! 

We saw that today.  Not quite the same to be sure, because dams have changed it's nature.  But, spectacular, nonetheless.


Somewhere along the line we were in Oregon!  But, we can't put the map on our Motorhome yet, because we still plan to sleep in Washington tonight.



Still imagining Lewis and Clark, we watch the Columbia River and see Mt. Hood in the distance.  I wonder if they saw this and thought *#@!* another *#@*! mountain range!  Fortunately, the Columbia river cuts right thru to the Pacific, but they wouldn't know that! 


Thanx to Rodger Smith who told us about an RV park on the Columbia river.  We met Rodger at the Life on Wheels conference.  He read our weblog, and emailed us about the "Peach Beach" RV park on the Washington side of the Columbia.  It's a GREAT place.



Yep, that's the Columbia river off our port side.  And, complete with Electric and water hookup, our site is costing us $15/night!  Pretty good.  Thanx Rodger!

Even better though ... there is an attraction nearby called 'Stonehenge'.  Oh boy, how am I going to choose just 2 or 3 photos from the 30 - 40 we took at 'stonehenge'??  




Let me show you some of the words from the plaque about this place.



And, the view from here.

 
 



What is it about traveling, learning and seeing beautiful sights that is SO fulfilling?  If it were all over tomorrow, I'd die a happy woman!