Water, Water Everywhere

Today we took a tour around Lake Coeur D’Alene (in Idaho) and then went north to the Grand Coulee Dam (in Washington).

We were going to take a boat trip on Lake Coeur D’Alene, but at 10:00 this morning it was only 58 degrees, heavily clouded over, and there were strong, gusty winds.  Even with a sweat shirt on, I was still freezing just standing in the motel parking lot.  The idea of sitting on the beach, or spending two hours out on the water, just wasn’t appealing.  So, instead, we drove on the scenic byway around part of the lake.

At one of the many overlooks of Lake Coeur d'Alene.

Lake Coeur D’Alene was formed when the glacier that covering that area started melting and the flooding deposited sand and gravel that blocked up three rivers and created this lake.  It covers 30 square miles and has many finger-like bays going off to the sides.  In some areas of the lake there are beautiful, very large homes along the shores with gorgeous boats at their docks.  There are many marinas also along the shores.  But there are also many places where the shores are not yet developed.  At the one turnoff, in one of these isolated areas, we saw an eagle soaring over head and also spotted the eagle’s nest, high on the top of a pine tree. 

Then we drove through the back roads in to Washington and came back on to I-90 at Spokane.  It was a total shock.  After three days of isolated back roads and seeing few other cars, all of a sudden we were on four lanes of bumper-to-bumper cars.  Luckily we were just on I-90 for 5-6 exits and then got off on to another back road that led us northward again.

Grand Coulee Dam is in the north eastern corner of Washington along the Columbia River which is a majestic river.  The Grand Coulee Dam is used both for flood control and for controlling irrigation to this very dry region.  It provides electrical power for 11 western states and is the largest hydroelectric power plant in the United States.  There are actually three different power plants at the dam.  It is one of the largest concrete structures in the world and is 550 feet high.

Grand Coulee Dam upstream and downstream views

 We drove along the Columbia River for a ways before coming up to the dam.  The river is quite wide, with high hills on both sides.  Typical of this area of eastern Washington, the land is very bare.  There was a spectacular view at the top of the dam, looking down at the backside.  Then we drove down to the base of the dam where the Visitors Center is located.  There was lots of water going over the spillway.  Like other places in the Midwest, there has been so much snow pack that the melting has been causing problems.  They have been gradually releasing water for the past three weeks, in order to avoid flooding places downstream if they were to release it all at once.

More evidence that we are not in West Virginia anymore.   We saw numerous signs today of “Open range area – watch out for livestock”.  In these areas ranchers do not have fences up to keep in the cattle, but we never did see any just roaming loose.   At several rest areas and visitors centers we have signs “Watch out for rattlesnakes.  Stay on the sideswalks”.  We have seen people riding horses along side the roads and there are signs warning about people horseback riding.  We were driving through areas of Indian Reservations and saw 2-3 signs for the _____  Community Long House, which must be gathering places for those tribal people.  On the hills (mountains) there are pine trees, but on the open plains it is just grass lands and sage brush – no trees.  Where there are any crops – wheat, rye, alfalfa – they use large irrigation devices. 

The gusty winds are constant.  You can really feel the effects as you are driving, and it made it feel much colder all during today.  During our picnic lunch today, we had to keep everything weighted down so it wouldn’t blow away.  The picnic table was roofed over to provide some shade, but we also had the one trees next to us.

As we were getting up into the north eastern region of Washington, late this afternoon, we saw one fruit orchard after another.  They were all using irrigation for their trees.  This must be cherry season because there were several fruit stands selling cherries.  We also saw labels on the orchards for pears and different varieties of apples.

We have stopped this evening in a little town, Oroville, Washington,  just 6 miles from the Canadian border.  Went to a little family restaurant, that the man at the motel recommended, and had the most amazing Greek dinner.  We started with a wonderful Greek salad with lots of feta cheese and a different dressing than I am used to on a Greek salad but it was very good.  Dad and I ordered different things so that we could sample two different dishes.  One was moussaka and the other was spannikopita.  Talked with the waitress and then the cook and learned that they grew up in a Greek family in Dearborn, Michigan and learned to cook these dishes from their grandmother.

Tomorrow we will cross in to Canada and get to Manning for the dinner and gathering in the evening.