Recently I made a trip out to The Dalles, Oregon which is up through the Columbia Gorge. The drive is up one of the most beautiful highways I’ve been on. The Dalles is situated right where the gorge turns from lush waterfalls and mountains to a desert. While we were there, it was recommended that we have a bite and some drinks at the Baldwin Saloon, which is in downtown and has large windows that open to traintracks with trains that rock the building every 20-30 minutes.

The saloon began in 1876 but I’m not sure if anything in the building is still that old. There is a fantastic mahogany bar that is from the early 1900’s with original mirrors and stained glass that you can sit at. They’ve also kept some of the old furniture, including a gigantic old cash register, pendulum clocks, and some old landscape paintings.

The bar had a small selection of beer, but a good selection at that. They had your classic Oregon beers like Deschutes Mirror Pond, Bridgeport IPA, and then a few smaller breweries that are located in the gorge. They were carrying the Double Mountain IRA (India Red Ale!) and a beer from Walking Man in Stevenson, Washington that I probably would have tried if it weren’t for the Double Mountain beer. With a small but quality selection like that I am assuming that they will always have some good beers on tap, so it might be worth stopping in if you are going through town. The food was okay, but the appetizer was great. It was a bacon-wrapped dates with cheese, grapes, and apple.

Here is a picture of the trains that were rolling by our window as well as a picture of the building next door.

There were a lot of landscape paintings hanging all over the walls of the gallery including this one by Joseph J. Englehart. I can’t say if this is true for this Englehart painting, but landscape paintings were sometimes used as propaganda to help the United States fulfill manifest destiny. Many travellers following the Oregon Trail would have waded their supplies down the Columbia Gorge if they hadn’t gone through the passes around Mt. Hood. The landscape paintings offered settlers a view of how the new world and the west looked, inviting the viewer into the picture through multiple eye-guiding techniques. Ironically the painters didn’t always paint the land they saw; they added and subtracted and exagerrated as they felt necessary.

So, if you are heading up the Columbia Gorge and have some time, stop in at the Baldwin Saloon in The Dalles. But as you pass through Hood River, one of the best places for windsurfing in the world, you definitely won’t want to miss out on Full Sail Brewery or Double Mountain Brewery for that matter (Double Mountain is about 2 blocks from Full Sail and was started by a few ex-employees). Full Sail offers some alright dining overlooking the Columbia River. They also have free tours of their facilities every day (I think) and at the end of my tour I got a free Full Sail pint glass. Full Sail, being one of the largest microbreweries ever, is worth going to for a tour.