Gingko Petrified Forest and Wild Horse Wind Farm

It was Saturday, May 16, 2009. A beautiful, slightly hazy warm day in eastern Washington. There was a bit of a breeze. After a short pounce down to the Farmer's Market and a spendy stop at Mountain High Sports, Mary, Stefan, Jubal, and I took to the hills between Ellensburg and Vantage. The desert flowers were in bloom and the sage smelled sagey... LOL! Anyway, it was a super fun day. We stopped at the interpretive trail hike about 3 miles west of Vantage and took a roughly 3 mile hike up a little hill.

A picture of Mary taking a picture of the landscape from the trail

Some very pretty flowers along the trail.

A petrified douglas fir. All the wood has been placed by silica.

Stefan and Jubal. Your standard Point and Shoot shot. :)

After the trail hike, we found our way to the Gingko Petrified Forest Interpretive Center and saw some amazing examples of petrified wood, rocks, geodes, agates, etc. And a really interesting movie called The Trees of Stone. It's one theory of how the trees became petrified, though not terribly accurate.

The view of the Columbia River from the Interpretive Center.

Some petrified logs at the center with the Columbia River in the background.

Some petriglyphs. We came up with our own interpretation of the symbols.

The iron horses on the ridge on the other side of the river. My zoom was a bit better than I thought!

Stefan and Jubal at the Gem Shop, posing with the dinosaurs.

Me and the river.

Flowers up at the Wild Horse Wind Farm. They were really pretty.

The view from the Wind Farm. I drew an arrow to show where Mount Rainier was. Click on the picture to make it large enough to see... if you squint reeeeeaaaally hard... and use a bit of your imagination. LOL!