Scenic Viewpoints

Driving north out of Antelope, Oregon, there is very little to see but rolling hills and a few ghost towns. You might see some cattle here and there, maybe a deer. Today while driving, I pulled my car to a stop next to a doe that just started at me for a minute until I drove off. It's a grassland. There is even a town named "Grass Valley" on the drive. The hills are unbroken stretches of mound in all directions and with the exception of a few places that are heavy to the lavender, are brownish green. Grasses that haven't quite been informed that it is summer and they need to turn to the washed out shades that many come to expect from summer in Central Oregon.

Along the Columbia Gorge, it's a different story. There are still the rolling grassy hills, but there are also very lush evergreen forests standing along the river in many places. Some so thick that you can't see the river from just a few hundred feet away. Climbing up out of the gorge on the Washington side, I noticed a few places that were scenic viewpoints. Not really thinking anything of it, I drove on. The view is going to be the same from the car as it is from outside the car, you can just look for longer when you're stopped.

I made my way North this weekend to Seattle and travelled over Snoqualmie pass. Along that pass there are not a few places to pull off and look at mountains and rivers and lakes. Things that I would truly be more interested in. The views weren't obstructed by the ever present gloom of a cloudy day, so I enjoyed some of these views myself.

Travelling back I took no notice of the mountains, I was in a zone. I wanted to get home. After 4 hours in the car, I got to the gorge and while driving down into the valley, I noticed these viewpoints again. Looking out over the edge of the cliff, I also noticed the rolling hills that they were looking at. Every one of them is dotted with windmills. Electic gathering windmills, not a single one of them was even spinning. There was plenty of wind, I had to fight my car along the road for much of the drive in, but viewpoints? What is the point? So you can see all these beautiful windmills that aren't even operating. At least from the freeway along the gorge, you can't hardly see the damns, and you definately can't see them for miles in every direction.

It has come to my attention that ODOT and my opinion of "scenic" are very different. I might pull off to look at things here and their, but I'll be very careful to make sure that it's something that I'm going to want to see.