On Saturday and Sunday, November 15-16, 2008, we drove the length of Highway 14. Up the Columbia River, from I-5 in Vancouver to I-82 near the Tri-Cities. Very scenic.
RCW 47.17.060
State route No. 14:
A state highway to be known as state route number 14 is established as follows:
Beginning at a junction with state route number 5 at Vancouver, thence easterly by way of Stevenson to a junction with state route number 97 in the vicinity of Maryhill; also
Beginning at a junction with state route number 97 in the vicinity of Maryhill, thence easterly along the north bank of the Columbia river to a junction with state route number 82 in the vicinity of Plymouth.
After driving in circles for a little while, I finally found the beginning of Highway 14 in Vancouver. I should've looked at the city map the morning we left. In any case, the onramp is the road curving off to the left. The bridge in the background is I-5 crossing the Columbia River. We saw a lot of the Columbia this trip.
After a few miles of freeway, we come to I-205, Portland's outer half-loop interstate. Last chance for Seattle!
SR 14 skirts the cities of Camas and Washougal while the old highway goes straight through town. In between the two cities is the junction with SR 500.
And then it's over an hour to the next state route junction. This photo is at the halfway point between SR 500 and SR 141-Alt, just north of the Bonneville Dam. I feel I should know why the federal government named the Bonneville Power Administration after this location, instead of something like the "Grand Coulee Power Administration," but I don't.
As we cross the White Salmon River, we have a sign for SR 141-alternate, a short branch of SR 141 that joins up with the main route a few miles up that river. Note the cliffs and railroad. Lots of both of those in the Columbia Gorge.
A few miles later, in Bingen, is the southern end of SR 141, the main route. If you look at the map, the alternate route makes more sense -- it's more efficient -- but I guess someone decided the main route should connect the cities of White Salmon and Bingen. Great idea.
Do you want to go to Wahkiacus? SR 142 is the road for you.
The Columbia River gets a bit too curvy, so SR 14 takes a shortcut due east. In the middle of that peninsula, we come across US 197, the route to The Dalles. But we don't want to go to Oregon. At least, not yet. Wait. What's that about a detour?
In the vicinity of the town of Maryhill, SR 14 ends temporarily at US 97. Not that you can tell, though. Actually, 14 keeps going a hundred yards more (Do you see the "stop sign ahead" sign?), but there's this weird triangle thing going on here. I drove all three sides, just because.
A half mile later, SR 14 starts back up, letting US 97 head south to Oregon (except that the bridge was closed! Which means that we couldn't cross to Oregon for the nearest hotel). On Saturday, we drove past this junction to get to Stonehenge (Thank you, Sam Hill.), but this photo is from Sunday morning, after a night up 97 in Goldendale.
It's a long way to the next junction (There's even a sign warning of no gas station for 80+ miles.), so here's a photo just west of the town of Roosevelt, halfway between the nearest state routes.
And then it got so foggy, I had to slow down to 55. But it lifted enough so Chunlin could take this photo of the junction with SR 221.
Still in the fog (Can you see the hill in the background? No?), we come to the end of our journey: I-82.
Where to now?
2 comments:
The last time I was in Maryhill, U.S. 97 had a ferry for crossing the Columbia. Do you know when they built the bridge, and why was a "new" bridge closed? In 1959, my grandparents and I traveled to Palo Alto, California, on U.S. 97. But the day we arrived at Maryhill, the wind was blowing whitecaps on the Columbia River, so my grandmother insisted that we drive downstream and cross into Oregon on the bridge at The Dalles. I did not realize it at the time, but apparently we drove U.S. 197 south from there.
Writing from Bonneville Hot Springs in North Bonneville, enjoying an anniversary trip with my wife. We went to the dam yesterday, and it sounds like the BPA was named after the dam because it was the first to be completed (see Wikipedia's list of Columbia River dams).
Post a Comment