Searching for the Trees of Mystery
Part 1. The Oregon Trail

Fourteen years ago, I stopped along highway 101 in Oregon to look at  the coast. When
I came back to my car, someone had left a "Trees of Mystery" sign on it. We weren't
going that far south on that trip, but I took the sign home and stuck it on a rafter in my
garage.

This summer, we returned to Oregon, looking for natural and manmade wonders.
 
We start near the end of the Oregon trail at The Dalles.
This was one of the West's first tourist traps. Wagon
trains either paid a hefty toll to go on, or took a risky
raft ride down the Columbia River. 

Not far away in Washington State is a reconstruction of 
Stonehedge. All the stone pieces are  there so it doesn't 
look as dramatic. Here, we met a outlaw biker sitting
there smoking dope. He had been waiting for someone  to
come by and  take his picture on his chopper with his
camera.  He returned the favor and took our picture,
although my son thought he was going to run off with my 
camera.  Ha ha.

Gift shop was closed. Doubt if they had snowdomes.

 
  It's really a monument to WWI
 veterans. It's free too, Thousands
 of cars must pass it very day and 
 never know it's there.
 
Any snowdomes at Stonehedge  might have looked 
like this one.  This is a 4 inch (100 cm) dome.
Twice the size and just as ugly.

I snapped a picture and left it in the store.


Less than an hour north of Portland on US30 is the 
Columbia Gorge. There you'll find the kind of good 
old American ideals that preserved this scenery
for a park and  snowdomes like the one above.

So what does the Trees of Mystery have to do with Oregon? More about that in the
next installment.