the best of 2011-2

 Up until today, the last day of the year, my 2011 folder on Photobucket has 729 pictures in it.  Since I’m going to Stonehenge in an hour, there will be more added to that folder.  These pics are the best of 2011-2 so far.

I went to a car show in Milwaukie, and my friend A entered his Big Dog chopper and won Second Place:

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Summer and the warm season didn’t really begin until August in 2011; it’s been a strange year for weather.

I tried to summon forth warmer weather by dressing for it and calling warmth upon us….

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In the 80’s and 90’s. I lived in and taught English in Japan, and two of my former students came to Oregon to visit me:

I took them to The Columbia Gorge.

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Crown Point and Vista House.

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The view from the top of The Vista House.

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We visted various waterfalls in The Gorge; this is Sheppard’s Dell:

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Next stop, Bridal Veil Falls:

A man and his son enjoyed a picnic on the boulder below the falls.

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Cape Horn.  I’ll be driving over this road today.

(there is a road there, above the first wall of stone, in the trees)

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Of course I took my students to Multnomah Falls:

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I took my students to Oneonta Gorge:

The road used to cut through this granite spur but now goes around it.

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I kept driving to the end of The Old Highway through the Gorge and we stopped at Horsetail Falls.  I did not realize that there were an upper and a lower falls here; this is the upper falls:

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The trail walks under the upper falls here.

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Lower Horsetail Falls:

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The Columbia Gorge:

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Rooster Rock:

This formation was named "Cock Rock" by Lewis and Clark as they drifted by it

on their "Voyage of Discovery" in 1803-1805.  It was named for how it appeared to them, as an uncircumscised penis.  The formation was renamed decades later to attract people to the Northwest – it’s now Rooster Rock, a different kind of Cock.  I told that story to a date and she said "take me home now", and it wasn’t the prelude to a Penthouse moment.  Ooops.

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I’m driving a hundred miles up the Gorge today, to go to the life-size recreation of Stonehenge in Maryhill, Washington, on the north side of the Columbia River:

To be continued.

 

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