Viator Viator Travel Blog

Editor’s Note: This is part of the ‘Contemporary Family Vacation’ series by Jeff Gates, the New Media Lead Producer for the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Managing Editor for its blog, Eye Level. Catch up on Jeff’s posts from this year’s family outing to the Pacific Northwest.

As we stood on the bluffs overlooking the Columbia Gorge I wondered how I would convey this landscape to you. My eyes took it all in as I scanned the river canyon and the surrounding hills. Mt. Hood was barely visible through the atmospheric perspective. I smelled the dry brush and felt the wind on my face. I noticed a fire had started in the distance, back where we came from. It was silent except for that wind.

Columbia Gorge (click for larger image)

I was standing next to a replica of Stonehenge, built by Sam Hill in the early 20th century. Hill, who was responsible for building the Columbia Gorge highway, built his mansion on an adjacent bluff. Never to be his home it became the Maryhill Museum. This Stonehenge was his memorial to local boys who had died in World War I.

Suddenly, a woman entered the construction yelling. “Who parked their truck right next to Stonehenge? Where are you?” A group of young travelers had indeed parked their flatbed right next to the memorial. I had noticed it too when I tried to take a photograph. “Who wants the hood of a truck in their travel photos?” I thought. Vacation pics are often taken at the mercy of others.

She found them posing for their own photo on top of one of the monoliths. “Can you move your truck?” the woman yelled. “I can’t take a picture with your truck in the way.” I took shelter behind another slab of stone. I didn’t need to hear their responses. I motioned for the girls to follow me to the edge of the cliff to take in the Gorge while we waited for all of them to leave and the silence of the wind to return.

-Jeff Gates