Travels With Connie #57 Stonehenge

Sometimes I know exactly where I am going. In that case it’s easy, pick a route and go.

More often I have an idea where I’d like to end up, and generally speaking a direction to go.
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Once in a while I just follow the front wheel and see where it takes me.

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Mysterious Stonehenge. The very name conjures up visions of Druids and Kings and mysterious powers. I'm glad to finally get to see it right here in South Central Washington.

What? Stonehenge in Washington state, not England? This is thought to be a relatively exact copy of what the one in England looked like when it was all there.

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This was built by Sam Hill, a wildly successful businessman and Son-in-Law of Jim Hill, owner of the Great Northern Railway. Sam Hill was a Quaker and pacifist who built this replica as a memorial to the men from Klickitat County that were killed in WWI.

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As it happens, I have a great, great uncle (my greatgrandmother's brother) who was killed in WWI but he lived right across the river in Wasco County Oregon. So far as I know he is not remembered anyplace but a single cross in France.

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This replica is made of cast concrete and if you don't look too closely it actually looks like hewn stone. The dimensions and alignment to the compass is precisely that of the original. It is even very close to the proper Latitude.

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All in all it is an impressive monument to the folly of war. This is only a small part of the money that Sam Hill poured into the Columbia River Gorge. His Father-in-Laws railroad runs between Stonehenge and the river, and he built a mansion about 3 miles away that is now a fairly impressive art museum.

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Sam Hill loved the area, and his tomb is just over the edge of the shelf from Stonehenge, which is probably his most famous project. But the Columbia River Highway, a completely paved road, was probably his best legacy. It's still in use and an incredibly beautiful drive.

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This is the view from Stonehenge downstream on the Columbia. That bridge is what brought my Great Great Grandfather to the area. He arrived as an engineer on the project and decided to stay so he homesteaded in Wasco County, Oregon. They raised 13 children there, one of which was my Great Grandmother who lived to 98 so I got to know her fairly well. I've heard stories of the region.

Thanks for coming along for the ride.

All words and photographs in this post are mine. For better or worse

You want some real motorcycle travel? Check out Velimir. That’s some kind of motorcycle writing.

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