Touring the Gorge

Our neighbors invited us along to the Maryhill Museum of Art last night for a chamber of commerce event and celebration of the museum's new wing.  We boarded a party bus in Stevenson and the adventure began. 
The drive east through the Columbia River Gorge is beautiful.  The scenery changes dramatically from the dense conifer forest of home to open high desert.  Ancient floods of the river expose a cutaway of lava layers in the canyon.
The museum was built by Sam Hill (not of "Where in Sam Hill?" fame, in case you were wondering) and has an interesting history. It sits on 5,300 acres with a sculpture garden and a full-size reproduction of Stonehenge. We will surely be returning to explore further.

 photo from Maryhill Museum website

We enjoyed wine and cheese in the museum's expansion.

We checked out the view from the new deck and posed for a family shot.  You can just barely make out a few of the dozens and dozens of windmills over Alex's shoulder.

We loaded back into the bus and headed for home.  Someone suggested a spontaneous stop at Schreiner Farm.  A quick turn off the highway and I spotted a herd of buffalo on the left, then a zebra in the distance, a bunch of reindeer...what is this place?

Basically a mile long road with huge fenced areas on either side and a turn-around at the end for gawking tourists, Schreiner Farms is a privately owned 12,000 acre cattle ranch with over 20 different exotic species of animals including ones I'd never heard of like wallaroos, watussi, and muntjac.  It's such a surprise to see these animals in the middle of nowhere Washington.
Then walking down the road we see this guy:

Oh, just out taking the camel for a walk.  And not one of those boring one hump camels...this is a quality two hump Bactrian camel.  John was nice enough to stop and give a us a informative spiel about camels and the ranch, and given the inebriated state of the party bus, this was no small task.  A few people went in for a camel kiss, and here someone gets a camel nibble. 

 Get a load of how tall Calypso is!

A fun evening was had by all!  Ole basked in the attention as he was doted on by the chamber members.  Our neighbor (and Chamber President-elect) Dale shows that he's a natural politician.