It was gray and rainy driving that long highway on the Washington side of the Columbia Gorge. Interestingly enough-and to set the mood, there was hardly a car on the road. The sky was a deliberate wash of cold gray mixed with intermittent rain showers. Our destination: a landmark that we'd never seen before, yet was tucked away roughly some 90 miles from our home. The place known as "Stonehenge" in Maryhill Washington is a re-creation of England's famous stone enigma.

Adding to the mood, is the feeling that you're crossing over into another world. It doesn't take long for the landscape to begin taking on dramatic changes once you near The Dalles. Some thirty miles east of our precious Fruit Loop lies balding hills, mesas and sage brush. In this part of the country, on a cloudy day, storms seem imminent. You tend to watch for lightning flashes that will either never appear, or come out of nowhere. My mood was exceptionally high for this is the most inspiring type of day for me. Everything was calm, maybe even too calm.

Again, with the gray wash of sky, the strange feel of what felt like a windless day in the Gorge, and the absolute absence of other cars, the day almost felt like science fiction. The giant white propellers of the wind-powered energy machines that fenced the blue hills were a highly unusual sight. They were also spinning which told us that wind was coming from somewhere. The land is so barren in these parts that it almost looks like a secret government installation, and the towering wind machines are even more intriguing.

As we entered the stone maze, an incredible calm took over, almost as if entering a strange portal. I'm sure that the designs of this, and the original Stonehenge structure, are meant to have some sort of power. Like the original structure in England which contains tumuli (tombs, or certain types of graves), this Stonehenge likewise has a tomb. It was was built in 1901 by Sam Hill who is entombed just below the encirclement accesible by a stone stairway. It was actually built as the nation's first World War I Memorial. Hill believed that the orginal structure in England was used for sacrifices, so he constructed this replica in honor of the war dead of Klickitat County.

This Stonehenge replica also measures calendar months with its heel stone and altar stone falling in direct line with each other during the summer solstice.
A display diagram which greets you at the front shows the exact stone-by-stone layout of the circle.