We had
a cool and quiet night at Bull Prairie Lake. Next morning,
we rolled down from the mountains to the heat of the lowland
prairies. Our objective for the night was Palouse Falls.
The photos below are what we saw.
This
farmer waves hello as he rolled past with his tractor.
This area of Oregon is big into wheat farming and the hills
were, literally, "amber waves of grain".
We hit McNary Dam on
the Columbia River.
The
Columbia is a massive river both wide and deep and supports ship
traffic in both directions. There are ship locks at the
left of the photo above.
There is
lots of infrastructure on the sides of the river.
There
was a large switch yard for the power produced by the dam.
The road
traveled right along the shore of the river.
Both road
and railroad paralleled the shores of the Columbia.
This is
a "grain train" from Canada. Note the "road colors" on the
locomotives.
We passed a large tug
escorting a set of barges down the river.
We
passed these interesting basalt peaks close to the road.
The
bridge to nowhere. The old roadway was abandoned.
We
passed large staging areas for huge bales of hay.
To get
to Palouse Falls, we had to cross over the Snake River.
Above is the highway bridge.
The
railroad bridge over the Snake River.
We
finally arrived at Palouse Falls only to discover the area had
changed their rules about camping. No RV or in-vehicle
camping. So we spent some time checking out the views and
then rolled on. In the photo above, Palouse Creek has cut
a huge swath through the Columbia River Basalt Flows to produce
this alcove.
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Photos and Text Copyright Bill Caid 2017, all rights
reserved.
For your enjoyment only, not for commercial use.