Day Nine - On the Road with Dominique

Hosts and Guests at the R and R Guest House

We left the R and R Guest House at noon for a day of touring that would end up in Portland, Oregon.
Oddly enough, we saw buildings based on Swedish log structures, a French-style chateau, and a replica of the Stonehenge in England.

Dominique's First Senior Discount

First stop was a visit to the surgeon's house in historic fort in The Dalles, Oregon.

Surgeon's Home

Trapper and Soldier

Houses Bankrupted the Fort

The commanding general at this fort spent so much money building fine homes for the officers that it bankrupted the fort. In 1905, all the homes had burned or fallen into disrepair, Some ladies of the town rallied together to save the surgeon's home and it was gradually restored to stand as the fine museum of today.

Andersen Homestead

Part of this park includes structures moved - piece by piece or board by board - from a Swedish settlement outside of town.

After a brief bit of hysteria when the bank would not accept Dominique's ATM card, we traveled north across the Columbia River into Washington.

First Crossing of the Columbia

Here, we visited Stonehenge, which was built by Sam Hill as a memorial to area soldiers who lost their lives in World War I.

Columbia River Bridge Seen through Stonehenge

Windmills Seen through Stonehenge

Memorial for All Other Wars

Next on the road West is Maryhill Museum. Originally, Sam Hill built this as a home where he envisioned a settlement of Quaker farmers. The land proved too arid for farming and no Quakers arrived or at least stayed. The home was abandoned before it was finished.
Eventually, Hill decided to turn it into a museum for his and others' collections.

Maryhill Museum

It is quite worth the visit to see everything from Rodin studies to post-WWII couture samples to Native American art - all on a bluff overlooking the Columbia River gorge.
Sam Hill was an enterprising and interesting man. The museum was dedicated by the Queen of Romania (granddaughter of Queen Victoria), who was a friend of Hill because of the bond money he raised for Romania after the war.
Dominique's French guidebook claims that is from his name Americans get the expression "What the Sam Hill!" I asked about this at the museum, but they deny that and claim the expression was used instead of cursing before this Sam Hill's time.

Continue West to stop at one or several wineries. As wineries are no big deal to Dominique and I don't taste and drive, we passed these looking for the wild animal park we had been told was on this stretch of road. We never found it. Maybe that was because it is in Winston on the Oregon side of the river.

We then crossed the Columbia River again on the historic $1 iron toll bridge to return to Hood River, Oregon. We exited the the Interstate to drive along historic Oregon highway 30 to view some of the waterfalls.
It began to rain. We could see the Horsetail Falls from the car.
Although you can see Multnomah Falls from the road, everyone really likes to climb the stairs to view it midway.
Remember Spiro Agnew who said, "You've seen one slum, you've seen them all."? Afraid that is the attitude I have taken on waterfalls. Not to doubt their beauty, but I had climbed these stairs in the past. I thought I could miss the trek in the rain and encouraged Dominique to go ahead on her own.

While waiting in the van, I began to get concerned about where we would spend the night. It was raining and getting dark. We wanted to stay near the airport tonight. I started calling hotels. None was available that I felt would be within Dominique's price range. After 5 calls and 5 waits on hold, I finally found a Hampden Inn for only $116 because of my Hilton Rewards. I grabbed two rooms. (we must have two rooms or have me sleep in the van because of my snoring! Remember that if you ever travel with me.)

When Dominique returned to the van, I asked her about the falls. She replied, "Like you say, it is a waterfall!"
I am glad she had taken that attitude because there are about 13 more on this stretch of road and I had stopped at every one of them 2 1/2 years ago while taking a bicycle tour!

It was then I described to Dominique the accommodations I had been lucky enough to find near the airport.
Then she had a reaction.
Then we both had a meltdown.
After our meltdowns, we decided we had probably spent 14 days misinterpreting accents and comments. What I had taken as criticizing and complaints about all the accommodations and restaurants, Dominique assured me had been comments of surprise. Unless I had been able to locate rooms through the travel clubs or with friends and free or grocery meals, I felt like she was upset. Quite frankly, this got me a bit upset!

Fortunately, we agreed it was just the difference in our accents and her use of direct English sentences.

We made it to the Portland airport through the rain in spite of my erratic windshield wipers.
Dominique had her first and only American Hamburger and "French fries."

Hamburger and Fries

We went to our $132 (with tax) rooms on our last night of this road trip as very good international friends.

The Last American Hotel