Road trip to the outhouse

I've been asking John to take me for a drive.  I've been asking for a few months and finally yesterday he took me.  He was motivated by the need to use up the gas that has been in the truck for more than a year (we don't use the truck much).  And maybe also motivated because I was threatening to hire someone to take me for a drive.  We drove out to the Vista House on Crown Point, a little more than a 20 mile drive from our house.

There it is up ahead.

By today's standards, that is a short drive but when the Vista House was built, it was a comfort stop for Portlanders going out for a drive (it was a long, windy road then and cars didn't go very fast).  Vista House was dubbed Portland's $100,000 outhouse.  And it is pretty fancy.  You can read about its history and architecture on Wikipedia and on the Vista House website.  It fell into sad disrepair but was restored to its original glory a few years ago.  The restoration cost over a million dollars.

It's a really cool building, sitting high above the Columbia.  There are lots of wonderful pictures of the Vista House by better photographers than I am.

Here is one I really like.

This is a nice shot of the inside

photo source

And here is a link to lots of others.

Here are some more I took.

 The view from parking lot.

The building

John with the Columbia Gorge view behind him.

And since it is known as Portland's Outhouse, here are few of the bathroom, which is done in marble and mahogany.

 The inside of the building has many stairways and long hallways.