We woke up to overcast skies and a bit of rain. We left Kelso, crossed the Columbia River on the Lewis and Clark bridge and headed west to Astoria to visit the Columbia River Maritime Museum. I am really enjoying the driving off the interstate. Lots of twists and turns again with the road in generally excellent condition.
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| First look at the Maritime Museum |
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| It's OK B... it's just an exhibit. |
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| Showing I where to aim |
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| E, B and I in control. |
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| E, I and B outside the Maritime Museum with the Lightship Columbia in the background. |
If you are ever in the Astoria area I would highly recommend stopping by the Columbia River Maritime Museum. After our all too short visit we heading back east to Silverton to visit the only Frank Lloyd Wright house in the state. This drive offered up more enjoyable driving with just a bit of rain to dampen things.
The "Gordon House" is one of only a few remaining of FLW's "Usonian" style homes. It was almost lost to the demolition crew but was moved to its current location next to the Oregon Gardens in Silverton in 2002. This is the first Wright house we have been to and it has encouraged us to seek out more of them.
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| Festiva at the Gordon House, Silverton OR |
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| Outside the Gordon House. |
The next stop after the Gordon House was Silver Falls State Park. There are a total of 10 waterfalls at this park. We had hoped to see 4 or 5 of them but as we got there it started to pour with rain. We stopped by the lodge and the "Nature Store", both beautiful log structures built in the early to mid thirties.
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| E, B and I in the lodge. |
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| The 177 foot South Falls |
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| If you look down in the bottom left you can see Sharon, B and E. |
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| I, E and B behind the falls. |
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| At the lodge on the way back to the car. |
One thing that struck us as ironic is the number of tree farms in the area. In the late 1800's thousands of families braved hardship after hardship on the Oregon Trail to homestead in the area. They cleared hundreds of acres of trees so that they could plant crops and now the current generation is planting hundreds of acres of.... you guessed it... trees!
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| One of the many tree farms |
Tomorrow takes us back to the coast for some sand dunes and lighthouses.
Looks awesome! I want to see more of the house.
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