Northwest Day 11 – Nowhere

Thursday, July 31, 2014

Odometer: 1682

Columbia River from Maryhill Museum of Art

Leaving The Dalles, we backtracked to Maryhill Museum of Art, back across the Columbia River in Washington. We initially were only going to drive by, but were drawn in by their grounds and excellent sculpture garden, which reminded us of the Cantor Sculpture Garden at Stanford. There were also excellent views of the Columbia River and Mount Hood.

Stonehenge Memorial

Nearby was a reconstruction of Stonehenge, which was built by local philanthropist Sam Hill as a memorial to local soldiers killed in World War I.

We proceeded back across the Columbia and south on US 97. The road was desolate, the landscape more reminiscent of the Mojave Desert (minus the cacti) — basically not a lot to see. Celeste suggested the name for today’s blog post — Nowhere — based on the scenery on the road. We got an enjoyable late lunch at an Italian restaurant in Madras, Oregon, and drove on to Bend.

Just north of Bend is Tumalo State Park, where Kenna’s family had stayed when she was young. Unfortunately it was full, so we continued south through Bend toward LaPine, where AAA says there are several campgrounds. We started with LaPine State Park, and, lo and behold, there was space available. Facilities at Oregon state park campgrounds are excellent so we consider ourselves fortunate to be here. There were more families than we have seen at the previous campgrounds, but our tent feels dwarfed by the many very large RVs around us.

Mileage today: 209 miles

This article is part of a series about our recent driving vacation to the Pacific Northwest. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.