Gorge hike.... The Vista House.

OK I have to rant just a little bit, we tried to watch the inauguration today, I say tried because at exactly 3 min. to 9am just before the swearing in, Comcast cable went out........ for 20 min. so we missed the whole swearing in. Then at the beginning of the Parade, I have wanted to catch the mustangs from Spokane......... Portland ch 2 KATU, asshats break in with their asshat gay mayor who has to apologize for having an affair with an 18 year old, consensual I might add, and way before he ran for mayor, not only do we have to listen to him but also the long Q &A by the media afterwards! HELLO FOLKS WE HAVE HISTORY GOING ON HERE! Anyway it just made me really mad, and if I could find the link on the website for the TV station I would complain to them too, I have looked twice and I havnt been able to find it. rant done sorryLOL

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We had a beautiful day for hiking the Gorge that day.


http://www.vistahouse.com/ It is on the historical register, here is the link to the info about it.

I hadn't been here since I was three years old, we look at it all the time from our side of the river. It is a beautiful building, and bigger that it looks in these pics. Me, Ashley and Meghan walking up to the entrance.

This is just inside, beautiful windows! Lots of stained glass, the gift shop was in the basement, Sara and I both bought an Indian petroglyph horse pendant down there.

Sara looking at one of the gallery's, going out to the balcony. It is all marble, floors and walls.

The view East, and you can see Beacon Rock where we were earlier in the day.

The view north to Washington. There are a couple different levels on the balcony's.

..... And the view towards home, to the west, and the city of Washougal. This beach is at the end of the Columbia River Dike where I posted about our trail ride, at the very end of the dike here, is the M-J Ranch, and is owned by friends of ours, we sometimes go down there to play. The island is Reed island and actually belongs to Oregon, it was owned by the ranch owners dad, a long time ago, it is said he gifted it to Oregon. And you can see the water in the middle of the grass at the west end of the ranch, that would be the Steigerwald Lake refuge from my previous trail ride post. M-J Ranch also sold 160 acres, on their west side, to the State of Washington for the refuge, in recent years. They probably still have over 100 acres left of the original ranch here on the river, the taxes kill them, being in a scenic area and all, they raise very few cattle anymore, compared to what they used to.

We had a wonderful time, and seen a lot of new places, the only thing that could have made it better would have been doing it all on horseback!! I hope you enjoyed these wonderful pics from where we live.

Our next horse, pony that is, was Megan aka Meghans Sparkle, aka Sparky, LOL.....