Wednesday June 14

Cruising / Maryhill Winery

Today's "first excursion" was much like yesterday's as we cruised through the amazing Columbia River Gorge all morning.  It was especially cool because we've been told that by day's end the topography of the land will change from this lush, evergreen setting to a nearly all brown, barren desert like vista.  And as you scroll down to see the photos from our visit to Maryhill Winery you will see this is indeed what's happening.  One of the best experiences of the photo shoot this morning was when another American Cruise Lines paddle-wheeler came into view and we could virtually "see ourselves" cruising up the Columbia.

After lunch we had docked at Hood River and were off to Maryhill Winery.  It was about a 40 minute drive and only twelve of us were on the excursion so we had a small passenger bus.  The driver knew of a ranch where the twin brothers collected exotic animals so we made a quick detour and drove around where we saw zebras, giraffes, yaks, deer, and camels among other animals.  Once we got to the winery it was set up on a cliff overlooking the river and they have an amphitheater where they bring in big name talent all summer long.  The next show is this coming week featuring Carlos Santana, the rock guitar player.  We didn't spend nearly as much time as we'd have liked in the winery but were taken to their unique museum.  For people who like museums it was really something, but for Kim and I, not so much interest.  I did find it so ironic that here they had a collection of international chess sets, many of them hand painted.....and if he were still with us, today would have been my Dad's birthday.  One of his hobbies while I was growing up was hand-painting chess sets (of which I still have two)!  What are the odds that today, on his birthday I'd find myself in Oregon at this unusual museum which features a collection of hand-painted chess sets!!!!

I cannot tell you how cool it is each evening to sit at the dinner table and watch nearly 90 minutes of non-stop amazing scenery go by the windows.  These two photos will hardly explain, but it's a snapshot of what we've seen every evening for the duration of dinner.

Finally, as dinner was winding down we pulled into an 87 foot deep lock - we went up top to watch the ship float to the top as over 40 million gallons of water filled the lock.....took about 30 minutes and then we just sailed away.  But when we'd reached the top, over the back of the ship we got a great final photo for the day - Mount Hood off in the distance.  I've also included the best photo of the mountain that Sue took earlier in the day.  Tomorrow we dock in Umatilla and have a full day's adventure in Pendleton - leaving the ship at 9 am and not returning until after 5 pm!