Day 11 Wednesday June 26th Columbia River

Heading west out of Lewiston we turned away from the Snake River, actually it turned north while we continued to drive west. This was sagebrush country, very dry and hilly. Shortly after passing through Walla Walla, Washington we ran into the Columbia River. WOW! I have seen lots of rivers, but I have never seen anything as large as this river. It was at least a half mile across and had huge whitecaps. We followed it on the Oregon side for a while. There were train tracks running on both sides of the river, with trains running on them.

Columbia River

At Maryshill we crossed over to the Washington side to visit Stonehenge. This is a replica of the original Stonehenge in England. It was so windy on the top we had to hang on to everything or it was going to get blow away. This replica was built in honor of the brave men that fought during WWI.

Fruit trees in the valley

We dropped down the hill from here and were greeted with tons of fruit trees. We noticed grapes, cherries and apricots. We had already picked up some cherries at another fruit stand, so this time we bought some apricots.

Once we passed the Dalles the topography changed dramatically. Gone were the sagebrush and hills, now there were lots of trees and everything was green. bigger too. We noticed wind surfers and para gliders on the water. You would have to be really strong to handle a board on the water with a sail in this wind.

We decided to spend the night at the Beacon Rock Campground on the Washington side of the river. It was a steep climb to the campground. The trees were huge and covered in moss, as was everything here. The wildflowers were all blooming and the thimbleberries were almost ripe, it started raining or really drizzling which sent everyone to bed early.