Well, this is the second to last post on Da Mystery Road Trip Revealed. Yep, we’re coming to the end of our journey, which is a little hard to believe after all this time.

No matter how many times we drive next to the Columbia River, I’m always in awe of how magnificent it is.

The river was pretty calm today, but sometimes there are lots of whitecaps.

We were getting a pretty good sky show, too. On this side of the Cascade Mountains it’s a lot drier than on the makai side.

There aren’t many trees out here; the mountain range traps all the moisture on the makai side of the mountain range.

Wind turbines stood like sentinels on the Washington side of the river. The state line between Oregon and Washington is right in the middle of the river, no matter which way it twists and turns.

And here they are on the Oregon side.

There’s a viewpoint on this side of the highway where we’ve pulled over to get some awesome views of the wind turbines, but by now we were in a hurry to get home.

The sun was going down, and when we’d get shaded by a hill between us and the sun, it looked pretty dark. But there was still water shiny-ness going on!

Then we’d come out from behind the hill, and it wasn’t nearly as dark. When the pioneers came through here, often they’d put their wagons on rafts to get down the river.

I remembered seeing this boat on our way to Montana! It was really a strange feeling, knowing that just a week ago we’d been heading in the opposite direction. It felt like we’d been gone longer than that.

Close-up of the turbines. They were huge!! What was interesting to see was that they didn’t all turn at exactly the same speed.

We took photos of the always interesting rock formations for Kikue.

We’re just heading into the Blalock Canyon area. Here’s an interesting site to check out for its history, including an excerpt from the diaries of Lewis and Clark. One of these days I want to take a road trip through the canyon. We’re just a few miles makai of Arlington, Oregon.

If I were a better writer I would be able to describe what it feels like to come around a hill and corner and see the river spread out before us. I end up feeling pretty small, actually. And very humbled.

Need I say more?

Nolemana dutifully took a photo of da train for me.

It woulda been way cool if a train had come along on the Oregon side of the river right about now!

We could see lengthening shadows on the Washington side of the river.

Still barren the hills. Good place for wind turbines, but I was longing for green.

Here we are behind a hill again and the shadows were very deep. Yet it was sunny as could be over in Washington.

In a way, the turbines kinda look like giant storks up there!

I was fascinated by the contrast of the folded hills and the very geometric and rigid turbines.

Now if I were really clever, I’d set the motion of the turbines to music. I wonder what it’d sound like!

They actually look kinda lonely up there.

I can’t remember exactly where Nolemana took this shot, but it looked wonderful against the rocks. On our road trips, we always end up in awe over the variety and magnificence of our country.

Portland is now 102 miles away, and we’re almost to The Dalles. Not too much longer and we’ll be makai of the Cascade Mountains.

The shadows are really getting long now; it’s been a long, long, day, and we were getting really tired. But not so tired that we couldn’t enjoy all the scenery!

But we came out from behind the hill and found another rock formation photo for Kikue. Another one of the things I love about taking road trips is finding photo ops for my friends: pīpī for AFK, rock formations and horses for Kikue. When I see something, gotta have photo!

Looking makai down the Columbia River Gorge. We were zooming along at 65 mph, definitely much faster than the pioneers had gone!

I love the color of the Washington hills, golden in the fading light. The river moved peacefully along, with no wind to add chop and/or whitecaps. It actually looked pretty serene today.

Next post going be pau da Mystery Road Trip Revealed. No can believe! Next time, we get home again…jiggity jig!

Love having all of you along on da journey!!